


TWC 2: Sea Of Green

by Zebeckras



Series: The Webfoot Chronicles [2]
Category: DarkWing Duck - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Humor, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-24
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:33:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zebeckras/pseuds/Zebeckras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second in the Webfoot Chronicles continuity.  Bushroot overruns the city with his plants and Beth manages, despite her best efforts, to get involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act I, part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my rewrite of TWC2, which I hope will progress quickly! This fic was originally written in 1994, semi-revised in 1995, and then left to sit in a moldy kitchen where it suffered water damage and... no, it's just that I grew up and realized I could write better now that I wasn't (age deleted to save author's pride) anymore. This follows my recently-released rewrite of TWC1, "My Kingdom For a Double-Plait Bolt", and like its predecessor is in a series which introduces my OC, Beth Webfoot. The original versions of the other three fics are available online, but they no longer correspond, continuity-wise. Hopefully I can keep my momentum going and get to the other three in this first set of five fics. :) Meanwhile, enjoy, and PLEASE review! I need feedback to keep me going!

One seasonally mild evening in September, St. Canard's greenest resident made a sincere attempt to enter the city's social scene.

Bushroot was not a fan of dance halls - there was no room to breathe, and his roots generally got trampled on - and he didn't care for bars, or other "typical" places to meet people. Instead he opted for an evening meeting at the St. Canard Botanist Society, held in a local school library, where he found everyone pleasantly talking about flowers and accompanied by a potted plant of some kind. It was lovely, and looking around, he finally felt a sense of kinship with non-vegetable beings.

It was still hard, though, to try to interact. Everyone seemed to know one another, and he knew it would be easier to introduce himself to their plants than to the actual people. He hung back a little, just watching, until a soft, kind voice spoke at his elbow.

"Are you going to stay? Why don't you let me take your hat and coat?"

Bushroot jumped slightly and turned to see a pretty blonde duck smiling at him. He felt himself start blushing, and chuckled awkwardly. "Uh, actually, I- I'd like to keep them on. For now," he added, when she began to look at him a little uncertainly.

"Okay, if that's what you want. You should come on in, though, and settle down. Have a seat, we're always happy to have new members." She took his arm and led him towards a table that was equipped with several slightly-undersized chairs. "I'm Laelia."

"Like the orchid!" he said, delighted.

She beamed at him. "That's right! Wow, you do know your flowers."

"I know a lot of flowers." Although it was the absolute truth, it sounded kind of lame. He looked at his hands, feeling bashful. "Uh, I... I'm afraid I didn't bring a plant with me, though."

Laelia laughed. "Oh, don't worry! That's not a requirement. A lot of people just started bringing in friends from home - it can be a great conversation-starter - but you sure don't _have_ to. I bet we can think of plenty of other things to talk about."

That had the ring of an invitation. Bushroot gave a great sigh of relief and let himself relax a little bit. "Well, have you ever heard of the Lyceum Nycanthropus?"

Shaking her head, Laelia said, "I can't say that I have. I'd love to know more, though. What order is it?" She rested her elbow on the table top and smiled at him as she put her chin against her hand.

"Oh, it's very rare - I'm not even sure what the order would be..." He put a leafy finger against his bill to think, and as he did so, he heard a small, quick intake of breath from across the table. His heart sank as he realized his mistake.

She was staring at his hand. "That's..."

"Oh, no no no! Don't be alarmed!" He waved both his hands frantically, but this only seemed to make things worse; Laelia paled and drew back from him. "Okay, I know what you're thinking, but I can explain this -"

"You're Bushroot!" she cried, and she stood up and backed away with her hand against her mouth. Heads turned from all parts of the room to stare at him. "You're the evil Mutant Plant-Duck criminal!"

"Evil is a really strong word," Bushroot said desperately as he stood up. The quick motion knocked his had off of his head, and the room suddenly started buzzing as his face became visible to everyone. "I'm really more of a misunderstood type..." He smiled gently, or hoped it looked that way, and said, "All I want is to meet some people who love plants as much as I do. Can't we just sit and talk?"

Laelia started crying. "Don't - don't hurt me!" she shrieked, and stumbled over a chair on her way for the door. The rest of the room followed her example, and within moments, Bushroot was alone... Except for the plants, most of which had been forgotten by their panicked owners.

He sighed, then sat at a table next to a potted orchid, and put his face in his hands.

* * *

When he arrived home that night, Spike was waiting to catch his hat and coat as he tossed them to the floor. He didn't look as he entered the greenhouse, and didn't bother to acknowledge either his pet Venus Flytrap or any of the other specimens he kept around. He made his way to his lab bench that doubled as his kitchen table, sank into a leaf-chair as it sprouted automatically beneath him, and put his face into his hands with a sigh.

Spike sidled up to him and put his head on the table questioningly, and Bushroot eventually turned to see him and gave him a long, probing look. "So I guess you wanna know how it went," he said finally. Spike gave an affirmative yipping noise, and Bushroot sighed again. "I terrify them. Every last one of them ran away."

With a whimper, Spike cocked his head sympathetically. Bushroot scratched the fluffy foliage on top absently and continued, "And for what? What did I _ever_ do to them? I mean, hey, some 'plant lovers'. What a bunch of hypocrites, am I right?"

Spike's answer was a low grumble, as he shook his head in disgust.

"Yeah. People," Bushroot agreed, and snorted. "I'd like _them_ to know for once what it's like to be chased off the streets... stuck in one place all the time... locked away and lonely, kept conveniently out of the public eye..." He trailed off, his gaze growing distant. "Yeah... I'd like that, alright..."

* * *

At age 25, Beth Webfoot aspired to relatively little and had accomplished even less, at least as she saw it. She lived alone, stayed in nearly every night, and worked long hours at a retail hardware store. The primary selling point that her job and living situations offered was the low-stress, low-effort aspect. It was easy to live alone - no effort of keeping up with the expectations of anyone else, no stress of having to try to figure out the often-indecipherable code behind personal interactions that generally seemed to elude her and drive others away. It was easy to stay in her menial job, because she could do it in her sleep, and there was no risk of rejection or of being told she wasn't good enough. Which wasn't to say the job was a perfect pleasure or that she didn't get yelled at, but... it was different, because it didn't really matter.

Despite her preference for an anxiety-free lifestyle, Beth found that she was anxious quite a bit of the time anyway. At the moment, in fact, she felt anxious and nervous. Normally, when she felt nervous, she ended up talking a lot, as some people do; however just now, in the empty front room of the hardware store where she worked, there was no one to talk _to_. So Beth was trying to distract herself from her nervousness by restocking the ball-bearings wall instead, when the door opened.

The little bell above the door rang, and Beth jumped almost a mile before turning to face the newcomer. Henny, her boss, was in the back room and Beth welcomed the break in the ongoing silence slightly more than she worried at a possible altercation with a pushy customer - especially after the last two days she had had; considering that, she thought jumping at the sound of the door bell was totally understandable. Still, she told herself firmly, she was glad of the company.

A moment later, when she recognized the customer, she really _was_ glad to see him. "Launchpad! Hi!"

"Hey!" said the tall red-haired pilot; he shot her an affable grin. "How ya doin'?"

"Me? Oh, I'm good, really, but how are you? I mean -" She stepped closer, lowering her voice, even though no one else was there and the topic wasn't precisely a secret. "How's Gosalyn? I saw on the news that she got rescued and all, but is she okay?"

"Oh yeah, she's fine," Launchpad said casually, almost as if the young girl Beth had met yesterday got kidnapped by supervillains on a daily basis.

"And - and Mr. Mallard? I mean, he must have been so _worried_..."

"Well, yeah, it was awful tense for a while there. But everyone's fine now."

"Oh good." Beth felt about half of the tension that had been eating at her since the previous morning ease away, and she gave a deep sigh. "That's such a relief! I can't imagine that something like being kidnapped is easy to get over. Especially someone so creepy as that Megawatt guy..."

"Y'mean Megavolt? Yeah, he's real... different." Launchpad ambled casually over towards the checkout desk, and Beth followed in case he wanted something; however, all he did was lean easily on it as they continued their conversation. "Darkwing's used to him, though. They fight more'n anyone else, I think."

"Wow. That's... that's so _crazy_. I mean, to think that kind of thing is going on _here_ , in St. Canard, right under my nose! You know, I've lived in this city for over four years now, and until yesterday I'd never seen a single supervillain? I mean, you read about them from time to time in newspaper headlines, sure, but those are like tabloids anyway, and besides, what's in the news isn't really... It's almost not like _real_ life, right? Except... well, I guess it _is_ real life or it wouldn't be in the news..." She paused for a split second - clearly she wasn't quite over her anxiety just yet, because she just couldn't seem to slow down. Aware that she sounded a little silly, she said, "B-but all I mean is, you know, _supervillains_ \- I never dreamed that there would be _anyone_ who'd see them often enough to - to _fight_ them. Oh, but I guess you have more experience, huh? Or ... well, you kind of... know Darkwing Duck, or something?" It dawned on her that he'd spoken pretty casually just then about the vigilante who had rescued Gosalyn Mallard the day before, and Beth wondered if maybe she was the lone holdout in the city who _hadn't_ dealt with criminals and heroes up until now.

Launchpad looked a little bit caught by surprise, and he straightened up and looked at the wall. "Oh, uh, yeah... Well, I mean, we met a few times. Actually I - heh heh, I used to keep a scrapbook of 'im when I first moved here. Big fan, actually."

"Aw, really?" This struck Beth as cute somehow, since it was so boyish that it undercut her image of Launchpad, albeit in a positive way. "Heh, I used to do that kind of thing when I was a kid. Well, mostly with authors though. But still. I didn't know Darkwing Duck had been around that long..."

"Uh, no, this... this was a couple years ago," Launchpad said, a little sheepishly.

"Oh." Oops. She cleared her throat, and smiled, changing the subject. "You know, I'm sorry. I'm here babbling up a storm, and you must've come in for a reason, right?"

Leaning back against the counter, he said, "Actually, I came in mostly to see how you were doin'. I mean, yesterday had to be kinda hard on ya, right?"

"Oh!" She'd been carrying such a ball of guilt around with her, since Drake Mallard had made it very clear that he blamed _her_ for the kidnapping of his daughter, that the whole idea of anyone worrying about her reaction to the event was a complete surprise - and completely out of place, as well. "Oh, gee, I was barely even _there_. No, I'm fine, totally fine!" That wasn't precisely the truth, as her jumpy behaviour from earlier would attest to, but it was as much as Launchpad needed to know.

The thought of Drake Mallard set her nerves jangling again, and she decided - as long as Launchpad was here, and for all appearances not blaming her the way that his friend had - to ask about Drake's current opinion. "Um... While we're on the subject, though..." She bent her head to look downward, but lifted her eyes up to him, peering up through her bangs. "Mr. Mallard - was he... was he really, really angry with me after I left?"

Launchpad looked almost confused for just a moment, then seemed to recall what she was talking about. "Oh, nah. I mean - look, Drake was just worried. He gets kinda worked up about things, especially 'bout Gos. Don't worry about that."

"So he... he doesn't think I really brought Megavolt there?"

"Naaaah, no way!"

"And, um... he doesn't..." She swallowed carefully. "...Hate me?" It seemed too much to ask, for Drake Mallard to actually _like_ her, but she could live with not being hated. In fact, at that moment, it felt like not being hated would be the greatest thing in the world.

Apparently unable to hear her heart thudding away in her chest, Launchpad just grinned. "Aw, don't worry about that! He'd never hate you."

Letting out a breath of pent-up air, Beth couldn't keep from grinning, herself. "Oh, thank you. Thank you _so much_ for coming in here!" she said happily; Launchpad, looking confused, said it was no problem.

As worried as she had genuinely been about Gosalyn's safety, Beth now had to admit to herself that the main source of her anxiety had been Drake Mallard's estimation of her. She felt a little guilty about that - it was not a great set of priorities - but, well, nothing she could do about it. And at least she really _had_ been worried about Gosalyn; she'd been so worried, in fact, in the hours before the girl's rescue that she hadn't been able to concentrate on anything and had ended up coming in to work on her day off, just to keep her mind off of it.

From the back room, a voice hollered, "Beeeeeth! What the heck did you do with the inventory checklists? I hate it when you clean up back here!"

Launchpad straightened up immediately, shooting a glance towards the back room. Beth looked at him apologetically - "Henny's supposed to organize the inventory for tonight," she said quietly. Beth was under standing orders to let Henny know if Launchpad came into the store, but she chose to ignore those orders since Launchpad deliberately avoided the store manager whenever he could. Henny clearly had designs on the pilot, and was by no means subtle about showing it. In a louder voice, Beth called back, "I'm pretty sure they're in that pile on the desk - just a second, I'll come show you!"

"Bring me a soda when ya do, 'kay?"

Beth sighed; the sodas came from the drug store across the street, which meant a short trip was in her immediate future. "Okay!" she called back. She turned back to Launchpad and shrugged, smiling wearily; he shrugged too.

"Well, long's you're doin' okay I guess I'll get goin'..."

"Yes! And thanks for stopping by, it's good to see you." She stood awkwardly for a moment as he did the same, and they appeared to wait for something without knowing what they were waiting for. Beth hated that part of farewells; she had a feeling she was forgetting to do something everyone else knew instinctively to do. "Um, so, see you soon - OH! Oh before you go!"

"Yeah?" He'd started to turn towards the door, but at the sudden urgency in her voice he turned back.

"Well... okay, this is a silly question, I'm sure, but um... am I still supposed to babysit?"

"Oh yeah! Gee, well, I guess so..."

She had hoped he would have a firmer answer than that; apparently, he hadn't even quite remembered she was supposed to do so, whereas Beth had spent quite some time the night before wondering about the status of that job. "Um... are you _sure_? I mean, I definitely don't want to not show up if I'm supposed to, but..." But showing up unexpectedly would be worse, in a way, she ended up not saying. She managed to convey it with her eyes, though - or at least, Launchpad seemed to understand.

"Look, tell ya what. I'm sure Drake is happy to have you come by an' watch Gos tonight, but just to be sure, I'll ask him. If he says no, I'll call ya an' you can reschedule for a later time. How's that?"

"Perfect," she said, nodding in relief. She smiled again. "Okay - you have the number here?"

"Yep! Well, I mean, it's in the phone book an' all..."

"Right! Of course. Okay! So... see you tonight! A- a little, anyway!" She made for the door to the back room as he started for the front door, and since they were still half-facing each other, she threw a little wave in as well. He returned it. She hoped she didn't come off as a complete flake, she thought, as she ventured into the back room.

"What were you _doing_ out there," Henny said, without bothering to look up or put a question mark onto the end of her sentence. She'd been cranky since Beth had come in late that morning, since - as she'd been saying all week - she hated inventory. Beth, who loved the number-crunching aspect of it, had volunteered to do the actual inventorying; as the store manager, Henny was still left with all the paperwork and organizational aspects, and she was clearly not enjoying it.

"Um, customer," Beth said awkwardly. She tried to think of some details to back that story up, in case Henny questioned her on it, but nothing more was said on the subject.

Henny looked at her, then to either side of her; then she looked back up at Beth with a cranky, expectant look on her face. "Where's my soda?"

Beth winced; the babysitting question had wiped it out of her mind entirely. "Oh - I'm sorry, I forgot-"

Henny let out a heavy sigh and put her hand over her eyes, which Beth felt was a little melodramatic considering it was over a beverage, but she apologized anyway.

"Fine. So, the checklists?" Henny reminded her employee, her tone suggesting that Beth had been the one focusing on a different topic and Henny had been patiently waiting all this time to get to the important part. She had several stacks of papers which seemed entirely unrelated; looking at the state of the desk, Beth now had no idea where the inventory paperwork she had put to the side had gone, since Henny had apparently reorganized everything over the past few hours.

At a loss, Beth said, "Um... weren't... weren't they right there?" She tapped a spot near the middle of the desk. "That's where I left them last night..."

"Last _night_? Look, in case you can't tell, I've been going over and over EVERYthing, and it's pretty obvious that whatever was there last _night_ is not there _now_ , right? Or am I wrong?"

Beth cringed a little. She hated it when Henny got into this mood, but it was best to just ride it out. "Um. No, you're right. I just meant-"

"What I'm asking is not where the checklists were _last night_ , but where they are _now_." Henny spread her hands, her eyes wide and questioning.

Beth took a breath, and said as evenly as she could, "I - I don't know but I can go through what's back here, and - and find them..."

"Yeah, okay, that's cool. But don't reorganize again!" Henny stood up and headed for the door to the front of the store. "I know you can't help it but you mess up my system! I know where _everything_ is," she said emphatically, and jabbed at the desk with a bright-red faux fingernail to drive the point home. Beth didn't mention the obvious untruth to this statement; instead she just nodded.

As soon as Henny was out in the store, Beth realized with a sort of intense sinking feeling that she was scheduled to close the store _and_ do inventory that night, and she'd told Launchpad she'd come over to babysit. There was no way she could do both.

She really didn't _want_ to do both, anyway. In fact, she had a definite preference for one over the other.

Well, she _had_ given up her day off the day before; Henny owed her a favour. Maybe if she begged and groveled - and did the store inventory paperwork - she could get away with some negotiating. She vowed to do her best once she'd found the checklists, and got to work.


	2. Act I, part 1

Beth arrived at 537 Avian Way at approximately 5:35 pm that evening. They'd never agreed on a time for her to start, and she figured it was better to be early than to be late. She'd spent most of the remaining hours at work wondering if she should call the Mallard household and _ask_ what time to come, but this felt like tempting fate, so she'd just decided to show up. Launchpad hadn't called, and that was a good sign, right?

 _Please let this be right,_ she prayed silently; after so many years, she was due for something to finally be right. She rang the bell, and waited in very tense anticipation for the door to open.

Drake Mallard answered. She heard him before she saw him, because as the door opened he was in the process of speaking loudly to someone behind him in the room. "...I'll tell you one thing, if it _is_ one of the Muddlefoots, I'm just sending you over there with them right now, instead!" He was looking over his shoulder as he said this, and when he finished, he turned and their eyes met.

To Beth, it was an electric moment; she felt like she almost jumped at the sight of him, with those eyes, and that face, and those three little pieces of hair that wouldn't stay combed down in the front and instead fell forward towards his eyes, but not quite _in_ his eyes - casual but not messy, a look she found attractive.

She couldn't help but notice, though, that Drake did not have a similar reaction. In fact he didn't seem to have much of a reaction at all; he straightened up a bit when he saw her, and looked at her almost questioningly before saying, "Can I... help you?"

Good lord, he'd forgotten who she was. She scrambled to refresh his memory before it got too awkward for them both. "Oh, um - we met a couple of days ago at Bindler's Hardware store - I got you that bolt you needed-"

"I remember you," he said, though he didn't seem to have one of those big moments of recognition. "Beth Mallard."

"Um. Webfoot," she said quietly, hoping she wasn't coming across as rude. She was sure that she was blushing profusely.

"Yeah... look, I know who you _are_ , what I mean was, we settled this whole bolt thing yesterday, right? Soooo...?"

She realized, as she felt herself going numb with embarrassment, that somehow she must have missed Launchpad's call. He had probably called when she'd been in the back - Henny would have answered - she could just hear how the conversation must have gone... Although she felt a little bit sick, she knew she had to at least try to apologize before she fled the scene. "I, I... I-"

The door swung open wider, and Drake's daughter Gosalyn peered around the side. "Oh, hey!" she said casually, then looked up at her father. "Sheesh, Dad, you look like she's selling Quackerware or something. Aren't you gonna let her in?"

Drake paused for a half-second, giving Gosalyn a level look, and then stepped aside to allow Beth entrance into the house. Beth stammered something about it being okay and she was just leaving as she stepped inside.

So now she at least got to give her awkward and terrified apology inside their home, rather than outside. She wasn't sure if that was better, or ten times worse. She cleared her throat, and addressed Gosalyn, because it was easier. "Well, you - you look like you're recovering pretty well," she said.

The young girl smiled casually and shrugged the comment off. "Eh, I got nerves of steel," she said dismissively.

"Did you need to stay home today or was it straight back to school?"

Gosalyn turned to glare at her father, who was tapping his finger rigidly on the end table nearest the couch. "Y'know, I _suggested_ a stay-at-home day for decompressing, but not everyone around here seems to believe in my need for special care!"

Drake scoffed. "Since when have you ever needed a recovery period after being -" He stopped, and coughed, then said, "What was that about 'nerves of steel'?"

"Even steel can bend under pressure," said Gosalyn defensively, crossing her arms. "Anyway, I hope you're not here for that babysitting gig," Gosalyn went on, "'cause I'm on the verge of having Dad realize that I don't _need_ anyone to watch me by now, and I'm very sorry to say that I don't think your services will be needed this evening."

Beth blinked; she'd been sure that her babysitting job had been _cancelled_ , but if that was so, apparently the sittee hadn't been aware of that. "I thought-" she began, and stopped herself, then turned to Drake.

He did not look happy, although she couldn't tell if it was aimed at her or if it was just in general. Through gritted teeth, he muttered, "That's right, Gosalyn was _just_ telling me about her newly-discovered sense of responsibility."

"Yep! And Dad was saying how I could stay home on my own for a few days - or weeks, wasn't that it, Dad? - and we'd see how it went."

"Oh yes," said Drake, his voice turning to an odd combination of sarcastic sing-song. "And you were telling _me_ how you'd make _absolutely certain_ that all the dishes were done, the rooms were vacuumed, and the laundry was clean and folded. Riiiight?"

Gosalyn narrowed her eyes, and they exchanged glares. "Riiiight," she answered, echoing his tone from a few sentences before.

Beth had a feeling she was missing something, but she understood that her part in this was finished. "Well, I... I guess I'll be going, then," she said. She felt like her bones were filled with disappointment. "Thank you for... for the opportunity..."

" _Absolutely_ my pleasure, so sorry things didn't work out, life's like that, huh?" said Drake, becoming more animated than he'd been since he'd answered the door. His daughter gave him a look that Beth found indecipherable, but he ignored it, and made for the door so that he could open it for Beth to exit.

Gosalyn was smiling at her, and she was doing her best to return it - she really liked the little girl, and she was quite sure at this moment she'd never see her again, let alone her father - when there was movement from the landing of the second floor. "Oh, hiya Beth!" called a voice, and she glanced up to see Launchpad giving her a cheerful wave.

He started down the staircase towards her, and about halfway down he paused. "Uh-oh," he said quietly, apparently to himself, and when he reached the bottom of the steps he walked up to her and said, "Uh, hey. Can you wait here a sec?"

"Sure?" she said in reply, enough confusion in her voice to give the statement an out-of-place question mark.

Launchpad tugged at Drake's elbow and said in a low voice, "Drake, can I talk to ya about something?"

As Launchpad removed Drake to a corner of the room, away from her, Beth was almost certain that he had forgotten to speak to Drake about her coming. She supposed she should be upset, maybe, but instead it struck her as somehow quite funny.

* * *

"Look, DW," Launchpad said in as quiet a tone as he could manage, while still being sure that Drake could hear him, "about Beth bein' here..."

Drake was casting glances back at Beth, who was speaking now with Gosalyn near the front door. Musingly, he said, "It just never seems to end, does it? I keep thinking I've gotten rid of her, and then bam, like a bad penny..."

Launchpad realized belatedly that this situation was a little on the awkward side, and that perhaps he hadn't quite gauged DW's feelings towards Beth as well as he'd thought. "Uh, well, y'know she's here to babysit, right?"

"Right - _that_ ," said Drake. He turned his full attention to Launchpad and said, "That's the kicker, there. What part exactly of 'get OUT' left her confused yesterday?"

"Well," said Launchpad carefully, "I did tell her she oughta come by..."

"What?" Drake raised an eyebrow, "Did you _miss_ the part where she led a convicted criminal to our house and facilitated his kidnapping Gosalyn?"

"Aw, c'mon DW, you know she wasn't involved in that. She was as freaked out as anyone!"

Drake crossed his arms stubbornly. "I don't have any proof of that," he said huffily.

"Are you talking about Ms. Criminal Mastermind over there?" Gosalyn appeared between them and nodded over her shoulder at Beth, who was still standing by herself near the door, looking around with an air of feeling out of place. "Yeah, she's the real dangerous type, all right."

"She... she could be," said Drake insistently.

As he finished this sentence, there was a loud rattle, and all three of them turned to see Beth propping a picture frame back up on the table she'd apparently knocked it off of. She fumbled with it for longer than seemed necessary, then carefully removed her hands, looked up to notice everyone watching her, and grimaced self-consciously. "Sorry!"

"Oh yeah. Watch out for that one," Gosalyn deadpanned.

Drake stewed for a moment, then said, " _Launchpad_ wants her to babysit you." This was clearly designed to get Gosalyn on his side.

Calmly, and in quite a mature tone of voice, Gosalyn explained, "That's a nice thought, Launchpad, but Dad and I have just agreed that I'll be taking care of myself in the evenings from here on out."

"Ohhhh no," said Drake sharply; he caught himself and lowered his voice, continuing, "No no, little miss sunshine, I meant what I said yesterday. You still need watching until you can at least make it through a week without causing some kind of major destruction to the property."

"Well - but how're we gonna know if I can, if you won't give me a week to try?"

Launchpad took a step backwards, recognizing that he wasn't going to be getting a word in between them for a few minutes. He looked up and caught Beth's eye as she watched them curiously; she blushed when he waved at her.

Meanwhile, Gosalyn said in a fierce whisper, "So all that stuff about me staying home..?"

"Just trying to get _her_ out of the picture!" Gosalyn's jaw dropped, and she glared at him indignantly. "That's right, Gos, as soon as she's gone I'm dropping you off at Honker's tonight and that's where you're going to stay!"

"DAD! I'm ten years old, and I'm not-"

"Ten years old isn't exactly the pinnacle of maturity, kiddo!"

"You're kidding me! I've fought _supervillains_ you couldn't even beat!"

"And yet you still let strangers into the house while I'm asleep-"

"Oh please," said Gosalyn fiercely, "like I'm so dumb I'd do _that_ when you're not here!"

"You are not staying home alone. End - of - story."

"Okay," said Gosalyn; her voice held a warning edge, which Drake caught a moment too late. "Then I want _her_ to babysit me."

"No. No. Absolutely-"

Gosalyn crossed her arms and stood as tall as she could, which was still about two heads shorter than her father. "It's her or nothing."

Drake and Gosalyn both fell silent and stared each other in the eyes for a few seconds. Launchpad crept away and greeted Beth.

"Um, hi again. So - did I miss a phone call, or what?"

"Ho boy. Uh, no, that's all on me... Things kinda got busy this afternoon." Actually, DW had been out when he'd arrived back home, and then he'd fallen asleep on the couch, and once he'd woken up he'd just forgotten; it was probably better if he didn't mention all of that.

"Don't worry about it. It's actually nice to have a change of pace in the evenings." Beth looked around and smiled hesitantly.

"Yeah? No exciting plans you're missin' out on?"

"Oh well, if I weren't here I'd be at work... or at home, it's either one or the other for me."

Launchpad shook his head as if he just wasn't buying it. "Nah, no way. You must do somethin' else - roller derby? Extreme bungee-jumping? A weekly dance-off at the disco?"

Beth was giggling shyly. "Stop it! Stop, you _know_ I don't do any of that!" Pulling herself together, she said, "So... you and Mr. Mallard are both going out tonight?"

"Yeah - uh, probably, anyway," Launchpad said, nodding.

"Where to?"

"Oh." At no point had he given any consideration to this, and he wasn't sure if DW had either. He pulled out the first excuse he could think of. "Bowling."

"Wow," said Beth, her eyebrows going up. She looked beyond him, and Launchpad turned slightly to see a grouchy-looking Drake approaching. Gosalyn, just behind him, looked distinctly smug. To Drake, Beth said, "Are you in a league or something?"

Drake, who apparently hadn't quite heard her, repeated sourly, "Am I 'in league' with something?" He sounded distinctly annoyed. Launchpad had the feeling that, with his current mood, he was less likely to ask for clarification and more likely to just snipe at Beth instead.

" _A_ league. The bowling league," Launchpad said quickly. Drake frowned at him, and he nodded as he said, "I told her that's where we're goin' tonight."

"Oh. Sure. _That_ league." Still looking unenthusiastic, Drake turned his annoyance onto Launchpad, but he at least agreed. "The _bowling_ league. So, Ms. Webfoot -" Drake paused, took a moment to sigh, and then continued, "-After a little chat with my daughter, it seems we will be in need of your services this evening after all. While Launchpad and I are out... _bowling_."

" _Really?_ " Beth gasped, and then she took a step backward, blushing. "I mean - if you're sure..."

"Oh yes," said Drake unenthusiastically. "I'm sure. Why not."

"Oh!" Beth put her hands to her bill, apparently overcome.

Drake stared at her for a moment, his expression suggesting that he wasn't quite sure if she was for real or not; he shot a quick look at Launchpad, who smiled and shrugged. Then he said to Beth, "YEAH, so... How about we settle on rates, times, things like that before LP and I head out of here."

"Oh gosh, you don't have to pay me!" Beth said immediately.

Eyebrow raised, Drake paused before answering. During the silence, Gosalyn said loudly, "OH yes he does!"

Turning his attention to his daughter, Drake said, "Sweetie, let Daddy do the talking now..."

Gosalyn leaned in close to him and hissed, "Dad, she's gonna be taking care of me. After I've told you over and over how much I want to stay in alone. _Think_ about that."

"You're not going to make this easy on me, are you," Drake said, narrowing his eyes.

Smirking, Gosalyn said, "It's not as if there's _no_ other option..."

Drake shook his head, and muttered something about 'just one night'. Returning his attention to Beth, he said, "So. Let's hear those rates, Ms. Webfoot."

* * *

Gosalyn was perched on the couch, watching her father pace in front of the coffee table. "Dad, we're gonna be fine."

Drake stopped pacing and eyed her. "I still can't figure out why you're so intent on having this woman babysit you. This seems like the kind of revenge on me that ends up punishing _you_."

Actually, Gosalyn was pretty certain that this Beth Webfoot was a pushover, and was anticipating an easy night. On the other hand, even if that wasn't the case, it was just one night... and this strengthened her resolve to do pretty much whatever she wanted, since Beth wasn't going to get much of a chance to keep up with her and there weren't going to be any repurcussions later. She didn't really have any intention of making this clear to her father, though, so she just smiled sagely. "Well, if you'd rather I stay by myself..."

"Not a chance."

They were at a standoff, and both of them knew it; and both were willing to play the risks to get their way, with both counting on winning the war even if it meant losing a battle or two. Gosalyn was therefore dedicated to making sure that this babysitter both irritated her father as much as possible, and cost him good money. This would show him he was better off just letting her take care of herself.

"Okaaaay," Gosalyn said. "Have a good time on patrol, then!"

Her father looked sharply around the room, automatically verifying that Beth was not there, before giving her a look. "Don't play around," he warned her. "And you, just remember, you _asked_ for this."

"Mm-hmm." Gosalyn nodded, a giant smile pasted across her bill. "Just one question, Dad."

Drake raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "What's that?"

This was really going to twist the knife, and Gosalyn knew it. She waited one more moment before she asked him, "How're you going to get to the tower while she's here?"

The expression on her father's face was worth sacrificing an entire evening to a babysitter-librarian. He froze, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, then clenched his jaw and his fist at the same time. "I can't _believe_ this!" he hissed. He looked at Gosalyn, who smiled back at him sweetly. "Where's Launchpad-"

As if cued from backstage, Launchpad entered the room with Beth at his heels. "So, that's the kitchen, an' the list of emergency phone numbers is on the fridge. 'Course most of those are on speed dial anyway... You remember where all the fire extinguishers are?"

Looking overwhelmed, Beth said, "Do I really need to know where all six are?"

"It really helps," he answered seriously. "So DW, you all set to go?"

"Have you eaten yet?" Drake asked suddenly; he grabbed Launchpad's arm and pulled him toward the kitchen. "You know you don't play well on an empty stomach!"

"Well, that is true..." said Launchpad uncertainly; he aimed a quick wave at Beth, and left her behind.

"Okay LP. We need a plan to get out of here while that hardware woman is here."

"Oh yeah," said Launchpad, clearly just realizing the problem. He opened the refrigerator.

"Launchpad," said Drake through clenched teeth, "last time I checked, there was no secret route to the tower through the fridge."

Launchpad straightened up, looking surprised. "I thought you wanted me to eat before we left."

There was an audible 'smack' as Drake slapped his hand to his forehead. "Why do I still get surprised?" he asked rhetorically. "Okay, fine. Here's what we do. I'll tell Gos goodbye and have her get Beth to go upstairs or something. Then we'll use the transport chairs before she can get back downstairs."

"Okay. Well, that was easy!" Launchpad said as he fished a few pickles out of a half-full jar.

"Yeah, thanks for your help," Drake said; the sarcasm was lost on Launchpad, who answered that it was nothing at all.

When they returned to the living room, Beth was sitting on one of the transport chairs and peering at the statue that activated them; Gosalyn, sitting mere feet away, was absorbed in the television and didn't seem to notice.

Drake nearly had a heart attack. For several precious seconds, he couldn't seem to move, even as Beth seemed to move in slow motion. She reached a finger out with agonizing slowness towards the figure, saying, "This is fantastic! Basil of Baker Street, right? I love that book, I must've read it four-"

"Don't TOUCH IT!" he managed to snap, and she froze, before snatching her hand back.

"I-I-I'm sorry-"

Still feeling like his heart was about to pop up through his throat, Drake crossed the room and hovered over her, glaring. "It's a - a family heirloom. Real valuable. No touching."

"Wow," she said, all wide eyes and deer-in-the-headlights expression. It seemed likely she couldn't quite manage anything else.

"Yeah. Y'know that chair is - they both need to be reupholstered. Why don't you sit somewhere else. Anywhere else." She practically bounded to her feet, completely obedient. He added, "The view is _really_ nice in the evening from outside..."

"Oh," she said, then her brow furrowed, and she added a nervous laugh. "Hahaha...?" How she'd managed to stick a question mark at the end of laughter, Drake wasn't sure, but he did know that he _needed_ to get away from this woman, _now_.

It was just one night, he told himself... Just one night, and once he was out of the house he'd probably never see her again. Unless destiny had a nasty sense of humour, of course.

He waited until Launchpad was telling Beth where it was okay for her to sit (and taking slightly too long; it was embarrassing watching him try to flirt with her every time they exchanged two words), and then he knelt next to Gosalyn.

"Thanks so much for your attentive efforts on behalf of my secret identity, Gosalyn," he said in a low voice.

Gosalyn gave him an indifferent look. "I told you, Dad, it's not like it _has_ to be this way."

Blackmailed by his own daughter. Drake felt attacked on all sides. Sheer stubbornness was all that kept him from breaking down and letting her have her way just to get Beth out of the house. "I don't know why I'm bothering to go out _looking_ for enemies tonight," he said sourly. "Look, Gos, just do your dad one favour. I need you to distract her so I can get out without her noticing."

"I dunno Dad, you're asking a lot..."

"Fine," he said, standing up. "Have it your way."

Gosalyn seemed to wonder if perhaps she'd pushed him too far; she sat up straighter, looking at him warily.

In a louder voice, Drake said, "Well Beth, you can order a pizza for dinner, make sure Gos is in bed by 9, and above all make ABSOLUTELY sure she gets her homework done. In fact," he said, as innocently as he could, "didn't you say you were going to need some extra help tonight?"

Gosalyn's eyes narrowed. "That doesn't sound like me," she said slowly.

"Oh, now I remember! You put it aside upstairs and said that you were going to do it before you watched any TV or anything, since it was *so* important. Maybe Beth can go take a look right now!"

"I would be pleased beyond belief to do that!" Beth volunteered, standing up straight again. Drake cheered himself as his new nemesis followed his grumbling daughter up the stairs, and as soon as they were both out of sight, he made a break for the chairs, grabbing Launchpad by the arm on the way. Within seconds he'd attacked the head of the Basil statue, and they were gone.


	3. Act I, part 3

"There! At last it's complete!"

The vial, held aloft by a vine adorned with a single strong, dextrous leaf at its end, contained a translucent fluid with a strong green tinge to it.

Spike eyed it curiously, and Bushroot pulled it in close, peering at it intently. "It took a day and a half of straight work, but it's ready! And now I can make them all pay for treating me the way they do." He sniffed it lightly, then held it out to Spike. "Smell this, does this smell okay to you?" The flytrap sniffed it all over, and finally gave a little shrug accompanied by a "meh" noise. "Yeah, I put some lilac extract in there to try and get rid of the gillyweed smell but I'm not really sure it covers it."

Bushroot shrugged, and stuck a cork in the top of the vial. "Well, the smell doesn't matter so long as it works! And this oughta work just fine."

With a rasped half-growl, Spike reached for the vial. Bushroot, looking irritated, snatched it away. "Yes, I'm sure it's going to work! This is a carefully formulated compound here! It'll have no effect on the animals of St. Canard; the active ingredient affects the plastids in plant cells." Spike whined and cocked his head, and Bushroot nodded. "So, all you have to do is get this into the St. Canard water supply, and then we sit back and wait. Once it reaches enough of the plants of the city... the fun will _really_ begin!"

* * *

Gosalyn's room was not exactly messy, but it wasn't what you could call clean, either. There were areas that were clearly designated as "junk spots" where Gosalyn just shoved things she wasn't using, and each corner of the room held some kind of sports equipment. Looking around, Beth wondered what would happen if she opened the closet door - would a tower of items fall out, like in a cartoon?

With a sigh, the girl threw herself down on her bed and propped herself up on her elbow. "Okay, so, I guess I need some help or something."

Beth felt entirely at ease in the realm of education, so she hoped maybe if she seemed happy about it, that would transfer to Gosalyn as well. "Um, okay, that's no problem! What area?"

" _I_ don't know," said Gosalyn, heaving a shrug that was both melodramatic and unenthusiastic. "All of it?"

"Oh," said Beth, a little helplessly. Well, the easiest way to start this would probably be to play to her own strengths, so she said, "Any math homework, then?"

"Yeah," said Gosalyn, and she heaved herself to a sitting position, and then hopped off the bed to grab her bookbag. She had no sooner hit the floor than Beth heard an odd sound from downstairs, a sort of hollow rushing sound, and she cocked her head.

"What's that?"

Gosalyn, her eyes very wide and innocent, said "What's what?"

"That - don't you hear - um..." Beth squinted; the noise had stopped now, and she frowned slightly. "Did... did you hear a kind of _whooshing_ sound...?"

"Nnnooooo..." Gosalyn hopped back up on her bed and slid her books out of her bag, then snapped her fingers. "Oh hey! Wait, I just remembered, I don't _have_ homework tonight!"

Beth raised an eyebrow; although she was nervous about questioning her charge, this seemed hard to believe. "Really?" she asked dubiously. "Just a second ago..."

"Yeah, y'know, I don't know what I was thinking. Probably the shock from that kidnapping. In fact maybe I should go watch TV to help me unwind - too much stress might overload me..." She stood and headed for the door.

This was one of those situations that Beth utterly hated. It was the kind of thing that she had no idea how to handle, because it involved questioning another person and in her experience that never went over well. And she barely even knew Gosalyn, so really, she had no business accusing her of being untruthful.

And yet, Drake had explicitly said that she should make sure that Gosalyn did her homework before he had left. And if it was not done by the next morning, Beth had a feeling she would not be asked back to babysit another night. (Then again, there was always the chance that she might not be invited back under _any_ circumstances... but she hoped that if she did a completely perfect job, it might improve her chances.)

But if she tried to get into Drake's good graces by strongarming Gosalyn into doing her homework, the girl would probably complain to her father once he got home, and again, she'd be out a babysitting job - the only job that could possibly matter.

So what would be her downfall? Unreasonableness, or passivity?

All of this debate took place in a half second within Beth's head, because Gosalyn had only just reached the door before Beth said quickly, "H-hang on!"

Gosalyn turned, fairly and cheerfully, and gave Beth an inquisitive smile.

One thing Beth would say for the girl: she was not unfriendly, even if she was determined not to do any work. Buoyed by the idea that she wasn't in for a bullying from a ten-year-old, Beth went on, "Um, Gosalyn... Your father entrusted me with your safe-keeping tonight, a-and that is not limited only to your physical safety, it includes your intellectual safe-keeping too." She winced; this sounded like she was reading it out of a textbook. "W-what I'm saying is... I know your father wants you to do your homework tonight. And... and I have a feeling that you _do_ have some, and you're avoiding it, a-and really, that's... that's not... necessary," she finished weakly.

"Oh, boy," Gosalyn said under her breath, and she rolled her eyes. "Well, _if_ I did have homework - and I'm not saying I _do_ , we're talking hypothetically here, lady - _if_ I did, just what exactly would your plan be to get me to do it?"

Although it was said without malice, Beth still recognized the challenge being thrown down in front of her. Gosalyn had seen right through her; she was plainly aware of the fact that Beth had no bargaining chip and was afraid to rock the boat too much, and she was more than prepared to use that knowledge to walk all over her babysitter.

But Beth had something to lose this time, and that knowledge spurred her into bluffing. "Well," she said carefully, "once you finish it, you can - you can do *whatever* you want for the rest of the night."

Gosalyn seemed to consider this for a split second, then said, "Y'know, I kinda was planning on doing that anyway." She seemed almost apologetic.

"But... but if you get the work done _quickly_ , then - then your father will be happy when he gets back, and you... won't miss much on TV?" There was a pause, then Gosalyn blew out a breath that made her bangs leap upwards slightly.

Shaking her head, she said, "I can see this is going to cause you serious mental anguish if I say no."

"Um..."

"So," said Gosalyn, magnanimously, "I guess I can spare a little time. If you let me do it in front of the TV, I'll see about maybe getting it finished tonight."

This sounded suspicious to Beth. She fretted a little as Gosalyn obediently crossed back to her bed and started stacking her books into a tidy pile to take downstairs. "Well..."

"Dad said we get pizza for dinner, right? I like extra pepperoni." Gosalyn started down the stairs, and Beth followed her closely.

"Well..." Beth tried again, and this time managed to finish a sentence. "Doing your homework in front of the TV... doesn't sound like you'll actually be putting a lot of effort into it..."

Gosalyn stopped at the landing, and sighed in frustration. "Look, Beth, not to be unreasonably delinquent or anything, but what do you _want_?"

Inwardly Beth quailed, but she reminded herself that she had a good fifteen years over this girl, and as the adult, she should have the authority. She put all tremor out of her voice, and said, "I want you to actually _look_ at that homework. Put effort into it, and do as well as you can. I... I want you to learn it and get good grades."

Wide-eyed and incredulous, Gosalyn said, "Wow. Someone believes in miracles."

"Okay." Beth shut her eyes and put a hand to her head, unable to believe she was about to say what was coming next. "Okay... I'll tell you what. If you agree to do this, I'll make sure that your homework is right."

"If it's _right_ , my Dad's gonna know I didn't do it," Gosalyn said jokingly. Then she stopped. "Wait a minute. Are you actually saying that you'll-"

"No," Beth clarified instantly, "I'm not offering to _do_ your work for you. I just... well... I'll, um, I'll... trade with you."

"Trade?" Gosalyn looked skeptical but curious.

"Like... You do the first one, and I'll... I'll do the second." She winced as soon as she'd said it. Gosalyn's mouth dropped open.

"Are you for _real_? I didn't think grown-ups DID that!"

"I'm not doing it _for_ you!" Beth insisted, even though she knew that she was, even if it was only half of the problems. "I'm just - this is an incentive to get you to try your best!"

Gosalyn practically leapt onto the couch and, to Beth's surprise, switched the television off before spreading her books out on the coffee table. She pulled out a sheet of paper, scribbled her name at the top, and wrote a random math formula on the first line. Then she passed it to Beth. "Your turn!"

"No - no," Beth said, settling down next to her on the couch. "You have to _try_ , okay? I'm not just going to do half your work for you and let you get only half of the work right. You try on the first problem, and I'll watch you, and we'll go over your answer. Then I'll do the second, and you watch me to see what I do. Then you do the third, and we'll go on that way."

"Well, that sounds good on paper," Gosalyn said, frowning slightly, "but you do realize it doesn't make a lot of sense in reality, right? I mean... if all the problems are right it's gonna look really suspicious. And if you don't give me the right answers on the ones I do I'm not gonna learn anything."

Beth smiled, and for just a moment, it looked almost sly. "I never said I was going to give you the right answers. I asked you to try your best and once you have, we won't change anything, we'll just go over what's right and what's not."

Gosalyn looked completely underwhelmed by this plan. But, after a few seconds, she sighed. "Okay. As long as this doesn't take all night."

"It won't," Beth promised, and hoped that this was true. She'd always been able to do most of her homework in about ten minutes, but she wasn't sure how long it would take her to try to teach someone at the same time.

Still looking unhappy, Gosalyn picked up her pencil and muttered, "Probably better hold off on ordering the pizza, or else it'll be cold by the time we get to eat it."

* * *

Darkwing turned away from his main computer terminal, looking dissatisfied. "Okay, so there's no record of her in the database. As if _that_ means anything."

"I toldja," said Launchpad simply.

With a snort, Darkwing flicked the monitor off and stood up from his chair. "Yeah, yeah. Don't start rubbing it in yet, LP. I only searched for 'Elizabeth Mallard' and 'Beth Mallard', so it's possible she's using a pseudonym-"

Launchpad interrupted him, and was grinning widely and apparently trying not to laugh as he said, "Her last name's Webfoot."

"A-HA!" shouted Darkwing, and he stalked back to the computer terminal and swung himself into the seat again for another search through his database of active and inactive criminal records. Over his shoulder, he shot back at Launchpad, "And I don't see why that's funny. It's an honest mistake."

Launchpad's only reply was a muted but unmistakable snicker.

Misunderstanding the reason, Darkwing said defensively, " _She's_ the one who introduced herself by the wrong name!"

"Ahh, yeah," said Launchpad, still chuckling slightly as he shook his head at the thought. "That's why it's funny." Beth was so unintentionally cute sometimes, it just about killed him. Who got their own name confused? That was adorable.

Of course, it looked like it was yet another strike against her where DW was concerned. Launchpad almost wished he hadn't said anything, even though it would've looked kind of weird once DW realized his mistake. Still, though - the first search had taken nearly a half an hour, and now he was starting from scratch.

He wondered just what Beth could've done to get DW all worked up like this; she was so harmless. And she hadn't even done anything noteworthy around Darkwing at all, except to bring him a piece of hardware that he'd requested. Sometimes DW got worked up about the weirdest things.

Launchpad also couldn't help wondering why, if Darkwing suspected Beth of having some kind of sinister motive, he had allowed her to stay and babysit Gosalyn that night. This was the one thing that Launchpad had had the good sense not to bring up, because he knew for certain that if he'd pointed it out, DW would've just kicked Beth out; and she'd come all that way, and really seemed like she wanted to get to babysit.

Actually, he hoped that she hadn't bitten off more than she could chew; Gos could be a handful even when she was being well-behaved. Launchpad wondered if Beth was as helpless as she seemed sometimes. Well, Gos was a good kid; it wasn't as if they were likely to come back and find Beth tied up in the middle of the living room covered with suction-cup arrows or anything.

He frowned. Well, he sure hoped not, anyway.

"Launchpad," DW called from the terminal, "do you happen to know if she spells 'Elizabeth' with a 'z', or an 's'?"

* * *

Spike slid through the shadows of back-alley streets as the sun went down, and avoided contact with meat creatures. Very few people reacted well to giant, free-roaming Venus Fly-Traps, he'd found quickly; although not many were prepared with giant hedge-trimmers the way the purple duck was, none of the reactions he'd received from anyone non-plant had ever been enjoyable.

When he reached the reservoir, he unclenched his powerful jaw and let the vial drop into his outstretched leaves. His orders were to uncork it (that had been stated and restated; very important, he remembered, to take the cork out first) and then dump it into the water supply. Two-step orders could sometimes have a twist in the middle of them, so Spike went over this a few times in his uncommonly-highly-functioning plant mind before chewing the cork out of the glass, and dropping it into the water below.

He watched for several minutes to see if there would be any big reaction.

There wasn't.

He was a little disappointed.

Then he hoped there wasn't _supposed_ to be a big reaction, because if there was, and his master asked him about it, he was probably going to get the blame for the anticlimactic scene that had just taken place.

Although he seemed to get the blame most of the time anyway. Maybe he could just fake his way through a fancy story.

Spike headed back to the greenhouse, a little wary, and behind him the water began to shine ever-so-slightly green before the glow faded into a quiet shimmer, and disappeared.


	4. Act II, part 1

It was nearing 10:30, and Gosalyn had finally wandered up the stairs to her bedroom about fifteen minutes ago. This had followed several hours of video games and other distractions, and more than an hour of "Not yet" in response to Beth's reminder of her father's mention of bedtime at 9 pm.

Since Beth had to live up to her promise of "whatever you want" given that Gosalyn had actually finished her homework, she wasn't able to do much more than remind and gently nudge Gosalyn in the direction of bed; under the circumstances, she was actually rather surprised that the girl had finally consented. She'd clearly been tired, but Beth hadn't expected that to make any difference.

There was no sign upstairs that Gosalyn was still awake; there was no real sign that she was asleep, either. Beth had been told she only needed to stay until 10:30, and at this point she had a feeling that her work was done - no one could force someone to go to sleep - but she waited out a few more minutes just to be sure, and killed the time by examining the decor of the house in a little more detail.

The homework situation had gone as well as could be expected, she supposed. Gosalyn, clearly intelligent, simply had absolutely no interest in applying herself to most of the work. Beth tried to make it interesting, and when that didn't work, she tried mnemonic devices to remember formulas, she tried finding ways to apply the work to everyday situations, she tried everything she could think of; in the end, Gosalyn had a span of about three to four problems in each subject during which she was receptive to input. In some cases Gosalyn started out well and in other cases she took a little while to warm up, but either way, within the first two or three problems she'd be open to instruction. Then she'd hit a wall, get bored, and coast the rest of the way through the assignment.

Beth was frustrated within an hour, and so was Gosalyn, so they both quietly stopped trying and just sped through the remaining work. Then Beth ordered a pizza, sat down, and watched Gosalyn play video games for the next hour. She was disappointed, mostly in herself; she promised herself that next time - if she got a next time - she'd do better. After a while she asked a few questions about the video game, and this turned into a disjointed conversation that involved Gosalyn's current favourite game as well as her high scores in several others that she had beaten.

Watching the girl sit on the couch and stare at the television while rapidly pressing a bunch of buttons wasn't hard at all, and Beth had figured she was getting off easily based on what Launchpad had been telling her, but it turned out that Gosalyn wasn't finished. The next two hours had involved skateboards, hockey sticks, and of all things, the fire extinguisher (Beth had been distracted cleaning up the spill from a vase and the next thing she'd known - well, at least she hadn't had to call the fire department). Then it was back to the video game.

In all it had been an eventful four hours. "Eventful" was not one of Beth's favourite ways to describe such things and so she was actually surprised to find, as she reflected back on the evening, that she had not hated every minute of it. Gosalyn was charming, actually. Destructive and uncontrollable, but also charming and smart, and quite funny in her lively way. She wasn't out to cause trouble, precisely; she just got these _ideas_ , and wanted to see them out.

From a scientific perspective Beth wholly appreciated the curiosity behind this mindset. She just wished that these ideas were the kind that could be carried out in a lab with preparations already lined up in case of accidents, and not the kind that risked burning down a house.

She was exhausted. Drake and Launchpad would probably be back soon, and although they'd said she didn't need to stay until they returned, she thought that waiting and having a quick chat after her first night babysitting was probably a good idea. On the other hand, if they didn't get home soon, she was going to pass out on the couch. As she cocked her head in front of a painted landscape, she realized she wasn't really looking at it; in fact, she'd been standing in front of it for the past few minutes without taking it in.

"Boy. Wake up," she said to herself, shaking her head. She moved across the room, passing the twin chairs and the Basil of Baker Street statuette, and that reminded her yet again not to touch anything. With her luck it would break, and it would be an heirloom, and Drake would hate her.

Hands firmly in her pockets, she returned to a picture she'd examined several times already that evening - a family portrait with Drake, Gosalyn, and Launchpad sitting or standing together in a nondescript room. Beth smiled slightly, drinking in the sight of Drake in a way that she couldn't do while she was around him for fear that she'd be caught staring. She tried to memorize the shape of his face, the slope of his bill, and the set of his eyes. How was it that every time she saw him - even a picture of him - he was more attractive than he'd been before?

There was still no sound of movement coming from upstairs, and Beth checked the time. Just past 10:30. She frowned, hating to leave now and maybe just miss Drake returning, but ... she was beginning to ache, both in her head, and just with fatigue. She had been given permission to go - in fact Drake had seemed heavily insistent on it and had used the word "promise" - so she shook her head and gave up for the evening.

She took her handbag and then stood at the bottom of the stairs, straining to hear any sign that Gosalyn was still awake, and going back and forth on the idea of calling up to her to let her charge know that she was leaving. It might wake her up - but it could be so jarring for a child to wake up and find that she was in an empty house...

Finally she decided on the way of passivity, which was always the easiest. Gosalyn was tough, anyway, and she knew what time Beth was supposed to leave. She'd be fine.

Beth put her hand on the doorknob and hesitated one last time. Then she looked around, taking in the look of house - warm and friendly and so suburban - and hoped she'd be back again. Soon.

She opened the door and left without allowing herself any further delays.

* * *

"Come on already," muttered Darkwing under his breath, gripping his binoculars and focusing in tightly on the subject he was observing. "Either make a move, or _leave_."

The lingering was what was killing him. This was taking way too long. He was sure she was going to try something - positive - why else was she staying so late? He glared at Beth, who was just barely visible through the window of his house from his perspective down the street. She was just standing there staring at a wall, from the look of things. Maybe she'd planted an explosive.

As he watched, she shook her head and then moved out of his line of vision. He waited a moment to see if she'd appear in the next window, but she'd apparently stopped between the two so he had to readjust himself on the rooftop he'd perched on, then find her again in his binoculars. When he did, she was staring again. He lowered the binoculars, his brow furrowing in confusion. What the _heck_ was she up to?

He checked his watch: it was 10:33. He'd told her to leave by 10:30. On the one hand, if she'd already been gone by the time he'd decided to start watching her (about 45 minutes ago, now), he'd have known she was guilty of something. On the other hand, the fact that she was staying so late just _screamed_ "suspicious behaviour". If she'd done something with Gosalyn...

The cold hand of parental anguish closed around his heart, and he gripped the binoculars and raised them again as if searching for a sign of foul play. And he'd been stupid enough to leave her alone with his only daughter all night! And Launchpad had been stupid enough to let him! But no, the fault was all his. Anything that happened to Gosalyn was completely due to his own lack of vigilance.

So far, the woman wasn't showing any sign of anything - certainly not brain activity. When he refocused the lenses on her he realized that the point of her fixation on the wall was one of the framed pictures he had up. He had no idea what was so fascinating about it, but he had an idea it wasn't good. Maybe she was casing the room.

When she moved again, he wasn't prepared, so he lost her in the binoculars yet again. He'd switched places on the roof three times already and still couldn't find her in the windows before he realized that she was walking down the sidewalk away from him, already growing distance.

 _She's leaving?_ He couldn't tell if that was good or bad. His first instinct was to follow her, but his immediate counter-instinct as a parent was to go check on Gosalyn. He hoped he didn't regret wasting time, but since Beth didn't seem to be carrying a struggling, bound ten-year-old, he could only assume that Gosalyn was still inside the house... one way or another. Well, he'd seen her bouncing around before she'd gone to bed, so he knew she hadn't left...

He radioed Launchpad to tell him to be ready in case they needed to catch up with Beth quickly - Launchpad responded affirmatively, although Darkwing noticed it was without much enthusiasm - and then he made his way along the rooftops before reaching his own house, sliding down the side, and entering quietly through the back door.

Everything was in place; that would be good for most people, but for someone who had babysat Gosalyn it was incredibly suspicious. He rounded a few corners carefully, his gas gun at the ready (ignoring the fact that he'd seen her leave five minutes earlier), and then darted upstairs.

When he opened the door to Gosalyn's room, he found it dark and quiet. He let the door swing open slightly wider, and a shaft of light fell onto the bed, illuminating her face. She was asleep. He let out a sigh of relief, and watched her breathing steadily for a few minutes before he let himself relax.

Apparently, he finally was willing to admit to himself, he'd overreacted. Evidently Beth had just managed to pull off a minor miracle and get Gosalyn to bed before midnight, and then she'd left, as instructed.

He didn't blame Launchpad for his tone earlier; he had been taking things much too seriously, and blowing little signs all out of proportion. Everything was okay now, though.

Darkwing entered the room and brushed Gosalyn's forehead lightly, then bent and gave her a quick kiss. She opened her eyes and said sourly, "Y'know, if you're gonna give me a ridiculously early bedtime, the least you could do is let me sleep once I've turned off the lights."

"I thought you'd hold out until at least 11," he said, straightening up with a fond smile.

Gosalyn sat up, rubbing her eyes slightly. "Got too bored to stay awake."

Darkwing said smugly, "Oh, no kidding? She wasn't a nonstop source of thrills and entertainment?" Gosalyn just glared at him. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, sweetie. You can go back to bed."

"'Kay." Clearly still tired, she actually reached up towards him for a hug, an unselfconscious act that was becoming more and more rare as she got older. As he bent down to embrace her, she said sleepily, "So, experiment over? Do I get to stay by myself tomorrow night?"

He waited until the hug had reached its conclusion before answering, knowing that his reply wouldn't go over well. "Sorry, Gos. I didn't say one-night-only for a babysitter, I said-"

"Dad!" She scrambled to her feet and actually stood on the bed to try to stare him down. "That's not FAIR! I even did my homework and the house is intact and _everything_!"

"-I said a few weeks," he finished evenly, crossing his arms in a calm counterpoint to her outburst. "You _keep_ doing your homework, and... not blowing up the house... and we'll see."

"SO not fair!" she grumbled, flopping back down onto the bed.

"Nobody said growing up was fair, kiddo."

Gosalyn's reply was a grunt. He chuckled and tousled her hair, which just seemed to irritate her even more; as he was on his way out of the room, she said, "If I have to have a babysitter, I want _her_ to come back."

"Who? _Beth_?" He was stunned that she'd hold onto this for so long.

"Yeah."

"Is this _just_ to get at me? Tell the truth."

Bluntly, she answered, "Yes." Darkwing sighed; it came out sounding somewhat like a growl. She added, "Besides, I know how to handle people like her. We had fun tonight."

"You call doing your homework 'fun'? Hey, for that matter..." He came back into the room, and peered at her closely in the dark. "How did _she_ manage to get _you_ to do homework? Did she do it for you?"

Gosalyn rolled her eyes, and in a grand gesture said, "NO! Boy, you really always think the worst of me, huh?"

"Not the absolute worst."

"Boy. My own father," said Gosalyn sourly. "I'm going back to bed."

"Fine." Darkwing got ready to head back to the Tower; it was high time he did some actual patrolling tonight. "We can discuss this in the morning."

"Gonna be the same answer, Dad," she said into her pillow.

He left, shaking his head.

* * *

There was something she was forgetting.

She'd be feeling just fine right about now if only she could shake that feeling... that utter certainty that she had forgotten something. The urge to turn around and go back to the Mallards' house was, in fact, becoming overwhelming. In fact, she was on the verge of doing just that when she suddenly remembered what she _had_ forgotten.

Unfortunately, it had nothing at all to do with the Mallards.

"Oh gosh," she said aloud, stopping dead in her tracks. "The inventory. Oh _geez_."

It was close to 11 pm and she had yet to start the backroom inventory. Not only that but the store was at least a 20 minute walk from her house, which was still a good ten minutes away.

For just one moment, Beth felt overwhelmed - so much so that she was frozen. For a moment she thought she might just start crying; a moment after that she felt unexpectedly like she was about to get incredibly angry, disproportionately to her situation. Then it passed, and it was just an annoyance; another late night, but she could make up the sleep later.

Her head still hurt, but at least she'd have the store to herself. She could listen to music (although she knew she wouldn't), or talk to herself (which she probably would), or order a midnight snack (which she almost certainly would not); anything she wanted, it was up to her. She'd find a way to enjoy herself.

She kept telling herself that as she changed her direction ever so slightly, and added the extra mile or so to her destination.

When she got there, she took five minutes to water the plants - something she did every evening when she closed, and which Henny had almost certainly not done. Then she headed to the back room and started the counting, which was not so bad as it seemed.

* * *

Late that night - or very early the next morning - three things happened at almost precisely the same time, though they were of varying significance.

At 2:14 am, Beth finished counting the boxes of nails, and checked her inventory list. Finding that she was approximately 2/3 of the way through the stock, she decided to allow herself a five-minute rest, and lay her head down on the desk with the intention of getting a second wind and finishing up in the next hour. She slept until morning.

At 2:16 am, Darkwing finally called it a night after scanning the city and taking in a couple of minor burglars. He and Launchpad arrived home a few minutes later.

At 2:17 am, the plants of St. Canard started as if by mutual decision to grow - very high, very quickly. It was an act which went unnoticed by nearly everyone at the time, but which would have strong repercussions in a very short while.


	5. Act II, part 2

The sun rose in a clear sky that morning in St. Canard. One pair of eyes alone watched it come up, although he was surrounded by several hundred of his friends, with more close at hand.

Bushroot thought it was the most beautiful sunrise he'd ever seen. The range of colours was phenomenal, and the light as it hit the verdant green of the city... it was just inspiring.

Of course, the company he was in didn't hurt the moment, either.

Basking in the rays of the early morning sun, feeling his leaves unfurl and drink in the light, Bushroot smiled. When the plants around him began to cheer him, some of them taking up a chant of his name, he smiled even wider, nodding modestly in response to their cries.

"Aw c'mon, guys, this was a group effort. No, really, I didn't do that much..."

He had though, and he knew it. St. Canard belonged to the plants now, and it would forever, if he had any say in it. The people rejected him; they made it clear that he wasn't wanted. Well, fine. Bushroot knew now where he belonged, and he had plenty of friends in the plant kingdom who wanted him around.

But that didn't mean he'd give up his rights to the city without a fight.

He could encourage plants within range of his thoughts to grow already, but with a little growth formula in the city's water supply, his range was extended to the city limits. Within less than an hour during the night, the city had been overgrown; almost no sign remained of a single manmade surface. It was all green, all growing; all peaceful and vegetative.

And the people of St. Canard could stay inside their hoity-toity houses and learn what it felt like to be relegated to a window sill and forgotten about except for a once-a-week watering session.

"Kids," Bushroot said loudly, gesturing at the expanse of open space that had been the main street of downtown St. Canard, "this is for you! Let's have fun!"

As he walked down the street, shrubs cavorted and flowers danced. Bushroot was among his people.

* * *

Beth awoke only after she'd slid out of the chair she'd slept most of the night in, and landed heavily on the floor. In a panic she stood back up, not quite sure where she was, half-convinced she was still at the Mallard house. She looked around the poorly-lit back room of Bindler's in confusion before she realized what she'd been doing; after looking down at the inventory list that she'd had her cheek stuck to for the past few hours and verifying that she hadn't done anything so awful as drooling on it, she breathed evenly to compose herself.

Okay. So she'd fallen asleep - at work, which was just pathetic - and lost a little time to get the inventory done. No big deal. She could still finish before the store opened. She still had - she checked the clock on the desk, and stopped as her stomach hit her shoes. _Nine o'clock?_ Was it really almost nine?

She pushed the door to the front of the store open a crack and found it dark. No light came through the windows; other than the emergency light at the cash register the store was unlit. She relaxed a little. So it was still nighttime - or at least, early morning - she should have at least another two hours, which was time to finish the inventory.

But what had happened to the clock? She wondered about that as she picked up the clipboard with the list and tried to force herself to pick up the count where she had left off. Had it stopped? It was still ticking now, and she noticed that it was two minutes later than it had been when she'd woken up. Why would it still be keeping time?

It bothered her enough that she decided to call an information number and check the time that way. She put down the inventory clipboard yet again, and dialed.

"At the tone," said the measured, pre-recorded voice, "the time will be 8:52, and ten seconds." There was a beep.

For the first few moments this didn't make any sense to Beth at all; it might as well have been in another language. All she could do was sit at the desk and listen to the voice continue to announce the time, punctuated by the tinny beeps; and finally, at 8:53 and fifty seconds, she slowly hung up the phone, her stomach full of dread.

Something was wrong. Something was really wrong and it wasn't with the clock.

She stood up and walked back to the door that led to the front of the store. Slowly - almost fearfully - she pushed the door open, a little bit at a time, as though she was afraid of what force she would find on the other side.

Blinking at the darkness that met her, she thought of 'The Raven' by Poe - darkness there, and nothing more - and felt a chill. But when she waited for her eyes to adjust, she realized that the darkness was not complete; there were spots against the glass where light - sunlight - was seeping in. And once she stepped fully into the front of the store and let the door close behind her, she saw the outlines of whatever was pressing against the glass. It wasn't darkness that was greeting her, it was a smothered absence of light.

Beth was not claustrophobic, but she felt like maybe today was the day to start.

She fumbled for the phone behind the cash register desk, trying to fight down her rising panic, and she had only knocked two or three things off of the counter surface before she found what she was looking for. Upon lifting the receiver, the dial tone drilled into her ear as her mind went blank and she couldn't rouse the number she'd been intending to call. She stood stock still until the dial tone cut off and was replaced with an angry beeping; with a jolt she put the receiver back down.

Who had she been intending to call...? The police maybe?

But what would she tell them? If she said that she was stuck inside her hardware store this morning they'd probably laugh at her. And they'd almost certainly ask _what_ had stuck her in there, and she honestly had no idea at the moment; no, she wasn't going to call the police, and she was pretty sure that had never been her intention.

Henny. It was Henny she'd been about to call: Henny would need to know why the store couldn't be opened on time and maybe _she_ could call the police and talk to them and take care of all those things that Beth preferred not to have to do.

She knew Henny's home number by heart, from all the times she'd had to call to see if her boss was on her way to her shift yet; her fingers were trembling lightly as she dialed, but she was a little more together than she had been.

Henny's phone rang five or six times before there was an answer. When her manager spoke, Beth recognized a kind of tense edge to the voice, but she couldn't place the reason - unless Henny already knew what had happened to the store, though Beth couldn't see how that would have happened. She said, "Um, hello, yes, this is Beth? Um, Henny?"

"Yeeees," said Henny, her voice now sounding both on edge and exasperated at the same time.

Struggling to make polite conversation and not just let her panic burst out of her mouth, Beth said, "Um, I'm sorry, did I - did I wake you up? I, I thought it was nearly 9:00 but I realize that this might still be considered early for you what with your schedule and all so-"

"Oh, for God's _sake_ ," Henny said slowly. "What, Beth, whaaaat?"

"Oh." Beth cleared her throat. "Um. Well, there might be a slight problem with opening the store today, and I just wanted you to know..."

There was a long pause. Finally Henny said, "You're kidding, right?"

"I'm sorry - I mean it's not actually my fault, it's not even in my control but I did-"

"Do you mean to say that you don't even know what's goin' _on_ out there?" Henny said, her voice rising dramatically at the end of the sentence; Beth's own sentence came to a sudden halt, and they were both silent.

Finally, Beth asked softly, "What do you mean?"

"You're not the only one stuck inside, dummy," Henny said, her tone biting. "The TV's out but the radio has a few stations broadcasting and they're saying it's all over the city."

Beth couldn't ask anything more, so she just waited for Henny to continue. Henny did so, with great relish. "It all happened in the night," she said, "they think somewhere around 2 or so. And now everyone's stuck inside, with no access to the outside..."

"I-is it a bomb?" Beth asked fearfully.

Henny snorted. "No! What, have you not even _looked_ outside?" She didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "Some kinda freak plant growth all over the place. Every building, every structure in the city is covered in giant vines. If you actually go open a window you'll see it. What the heck is the problem, you haven't heard ANY of this or even looked outside?"

"There's no radio here at the store, and the windows in the front don't open," Beth said defensively; she immediately wished she hadn't, but prayed that maybe Henny wouldn't notice.

No such luck. "At the store? You're _at_ the _store_?" She sounded about to laugh. "What did you do, sleep there?"

"I- OH, look at that... thing! I better go see what that is!" Beth said loudly. "Bye!" Cringing at her own poor excuse, she hung up the phone and stood in thought for one moment. Trapped, then... The whole city was trapped. Trapped by...

Plants?

* * *

After a showing of the latest Bruin Pitt movie for a few of the roses and begonias in his group, Bushroot and his friends left the theatre for the outdoors. The morning was in full swing and the streets were still empty, as he hoped they would stay.

How likely was it, he wondered? Could he really keep all of the citizens of St. Canard locked up forever?

Spike nudged him with his head, and made an inquiring growl.

"Huh? Oh, nothing... just thinking happy thoughts," Bushroot said pleasantly. "Like, you know... everything staying just like this, forever - just us and no one else to deal with..."

A box pine at his left pointed out the unlikelihood of that daydream working out.

"You really think someone will figure out a way to escape? I mean, we've got things wrapped up pretty tight..."

No matter, the pine argued. Eventually someone was bound to come up with something. They'd be trying, after all. They might even call someone in from outside of the city.

"Sheesh, good point. Hey, can we get the bridge tied up, too?" Bushroot called to anyone nearby who was listening, and he knew it would be taken care of. But it was a quick, and temporary, fix; locking up the bridge might keep people out for a while but it wouldn't do anything to keep the prisoners _in_.

And when someone _did_ get out and try to spoil his fun, Bushroot had a pretty good idea who that person would be. He'd need to head it off by being prepared; he decided to assign lookouts, and have them bring any non-plants straight to Bushroot to be dealt with. "Hey guys," he said to a batch of young, energetic saplings who were roughhousing with each other nearby, "I got a job for you."

* * *

Beth had turned on a light, but she hated the way it made the store look. The vines pressing against the window were thick - thicker than any vines she'd ever seen, outside of photographs - and with the lights on inside the building it made the space seem smaller. In fact, it made the whole store look like a stage, or like an oversized dollhouse. It didn't look real. She turned the light back off and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, she was already on her way across the room, heading for the front door. She was hurrying; she made herself slow down. She unlocked the door carefully, took hold of the handle, and took a deep breath before pulling.

The door came open easily enough, and she felt a momentary burst of relief, as if this was all that was needed. But of course it wasn't; of course, once the door was open, she was facing a wall of vines as thick as her wrist. She reached out cautiously and, after a moment's hesitation, pushed at the vines gently. They were taut and barely gave when she touched them. They were also slightly warm, which surprised her.

She stepped back, letting the door close. She could try the back door but she was sure she'd just find the same thing, and anyway, the back door opened outward.

It was starting to look like she'd just have to wait to be freed - and she had no idea when that would happen. Whose responsibility was it to cut everyone out of massive plant overgrowth? Did that fall on the city government, she wondered? She realized she was staring blankly at the door, and shook herself out of it. "Okay," she said aloud, and her voice rang strangely in the empty, dark store. It was enough to snap her back into herself. "Okay, stay focused. There's a way out of here. There has to be."

She looked around suddenly. "Garden section!" she said in a sudden gasp, and she darted into the middle section of the store. She found a pair of pruning shears, considered the thickness, of the vines, and tossed them aside in favour of a much larger set of clippers. A glance told her that these would do the job, albeit a little slowly; but then, what else did she have but time?

It might've worked. She never found out, because as she was settling the blades around one of the vines, another one snaked out and wrapped itself around the clipper handles, then pulled them from her hands. She gasped and stepped backwards, not quite believing what she was seeing; the vine brandished the clippers at her threateningly, then tossed them to the side. She vaguely heard them hit the paint cans and knock some over.

The door swung shut as the vine wound itself back among its compatriots. The little bell over the shop rang out once.

"I didn't see that," Beth said weakly. "That couldn't have happened."

That was it. She had to get out of the store, quickly, or she was going to have a breakdown. She returned to the garden section once more and found an axe. It was almost _certain_ to do the job, but...

The thought of the vine threatening her with the clippers (whether it had truly happened or not) was enough to keep her from picking up the axe. She retreated from the sharp-edged garden tools and leaned on the counter, letting her head touch the surface. She hugged her elbows and thought as hard as she could.

Herbicide. Fire. Pestilence, plague, insects. All stupid - the ones she actually had access to could hurt her, as well. And knowing how they'd hurt her, she didn't really want to use them on anything else that was alive, even a plant... even a plant that was holding her hostage within a building.

She sat up suddenly. The Bindler's building had two stories. And the second story had a skylight. Maybe...

Probably not, but... it was worth checking...

When she got up to the attic, she saw the light streaming in. It was blessedly bright. She scrambled to find a stool or a chair, and then fumbled with the locks on the skylight until she was able to push it open. Then with a huge effort, she pulled herself up and through the window and onto the roof.

She took deep breaths, as if she had been drowning, and turned her face up to the sun for a few moments. She felt like she'd been underground. Finally she got to her feet and looked in either direction down the road.

Every building in sight was swathed in green. The vines weren't covering the rooftops in the retail district, but they covered everything else. It was an ocean of plants. No one was going to be able to cut people out of this any time soon, but now that Beth had found her way out, she supposed she could offer her services to rescue parties... or something, anyway.

"I wonder what time it is..?" she asked herself quietly. It felt encouraging to hear a voice, even her own, so she decided to keep speaking out loud. "I guess it doesn't matter, but... it feels like it's been hours since I woke up but I bet it hasn't. Boy, as if I needed _more_ proof that Einstein was right..." She sighed and crossed her arms.

"So now... now that I'm up here, how do I get down?" She looked down; it was a long way. "Maybe - I'll just wait for the rescue parties to find me. I mean... it can't take that long, right?"

The silence really bothered her, though. She realized that she'd been expecting to hear sirens and maybe even loudspeakers blaring instructions; instead it was just so quiet. There was no sign of any rescue parties at all, and besides that, she was lonely - and hungry.

And she was beginning to feel anxious. She looked up and down the street again. "I wonder if anyone else is in this area. I guess not, I mean, who else would sleep in their store but me?" She looked again, for lack of anything better to do, and to keep putting off the inevitability of climbing down off the roof. It didn't work, and after a few minutes she had to talk herself through a terrifying journey down the vines that had encircled the building. When she was finally back on solid ground, she gave herself a few moments to stop shaking, and then she just started walking aimlessly.

Within five minutes she was lost. "Nice one," she told herself. "You didn't pay close enough attention, did you?" In all honesty, it was almost impossible to pay close enough attention to keep from getting lost, and she knew it. Everything looked the same; there were virtually no landmarks. She sighed loudly. "Oh well, not like I knew where I was going in the first place..."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement; she turned towards it jubilantly, ready to call out, even as she felt a flush of embarrassment at getting caught talking to herself.

But the words died on the tip of her tongue, as she nothing but a few oversized bushes in the spot where she'd thought she'd seen something move. Her brow furrowed as she frowned. She was turning back to resume her travel when she heard something rustle, and she half-registered that the rustle was right in front of her before she saw the large tree in front of her. She gasped, and when it swung its limbs back before it slammed them into her, she had enough time for a brief scream. Then everything was dark again.

* * *

They'd been at the FunVille amusement park for about two hours by this point, and everyone was having a great time. The crowd was getting a little rowdy, in fact; they'd trashed about half the park, and Bushroot was sort of surprised that no one seemed to care a whole lot about picking up after themselves. They hadn't cared for the gentle suggestion that maybe everyone slow down and just think about _not_ smashing the windows on the indoor rides, so Bushroot had let the topic drop and just left everyone to have fun.

Spike was even off somewhere - probably on his fourth turn around on the carrousel - and Bushroot was surprised by how lonely he felt. Sure, it was better than trying to go out among people; no one here was screaming or running from him. In fact, everyone here loved him and accepted him.

But they weren't the same as him. Even though all the plants that he'd given his growth serum to were capable of independent movement, just like him, they still weren't _like_ him. He was still the only one who could speak, and the only one who could really even think in terms of language. He was still on a brain level far above them, and though he didn't hold it against them, he could see it just by walking among them.

Maybe it would never be enough, he thought soberly. Maybe, no matter how many plants he surrounded himself with, it would never be the same as human contact. But he would never strive for human contact again; he wasn't like _them_ , either. Bushroot was his own creature, outside of both worlds.

He was lost in thought when a small group of dandelions caught up with him and gave him the news: They'd found someone.

"What? Really?" Bushroot found that he felt a small sense of relief, but mainly he was panicked and anxious. It _had_ to be Darkwing, and that meant a certain expectation of taunting and exchanging insults. But then again, conversation was conversation, and so Bushroot felt almost a little thankful for it.

He straightened up and tried to look more authoritative, which of course meant losing the self-pity. "Okay, well, bring him here! We'll show him a thing or two! Uh, he is securely tied up and everything, right? Totally unarmed...?" Once he'd been assured that his enemy would pose no threat whatsoever, Bushroot repeated the order: bring him here.

While he waited, he mused over what he should do to Darkwing after they'd had the inevitable "why are you doing this" conversation. He had to keep him out of the way; maybe it was time to use the opportunity and do away with the duck entirely, once and for all. It seemed a bit of a downer on what was supposed to be such a bright day, but really, it was probably for the best... He considered the right way, and was considering something involving the roller coaster and its track when the saplings approached.

He looked up, and noticed at once that the prisoner was not Darkwing. He was so surprised that he spoke out instantly: "Hey, what is this? You're not..." And then he stopped, because in the next second, he knew her. He was sure he knew her, even though he hadn't seen her in nearly a year, and never expected to see her again. If he had still been able to breathe, the breath would have caught in his throat; as it was, the words that came out were something like a whisper.

"Rhoda...?"


	6. Act II, part 3

"Dad?"

Drake cracked an eye open and found that the door to his bedroom was half-open and a rectangle of light from the hallway was spilling into the dark room, framing his daughter as she stood in the center.

Blearily, he said, "What is it, Gos? And it better be good. It's four am." He hadn't checked the time, but from the light in the room and how groggy he felt, two hours of sleep seemed about right. He let his eye fall closed again.

"It's almost ten, Dad."

He hesitated and tried to do some math in his head. It didn't happen. Opening his eye once more, he checked; room was still dark, light was still on in hallway, daughter was therefore incorrect. "You lie," he said into his pillow.

Gosalyn made a noise. It was the kind of noise she made when she felt like he wasn't listening to her, and he had to admit that she wasn't far off. "DAD. It's ten o'clock in the morning and the only reason you think it's dark outside is because the house is wrapped up in plants and so all the windows are blocked. So you have to get up and do something to save the city, _Darkwing_."

Well. This was unexpected. "The city?" he asked. Gosalyn answered in the affirmative. "The _whole_ city is covered in plants?"

"Yeah Mister Motivation, the _whole_ city."

Drake rolled over in bed and checked the clock; sure enough, although slightly blurry to his eyes, the digital display read 9:54. "Okay," he said reluctantly; he still felt like he had only just gone to sleep. "Okay, I'll get up."

But his body didn't want to move, and his eyes felt like shutting, and he didn't seem to be able to do anything to stop them.

After a suitable pause, Gosalyn prodded him. "Dad..? _Dad!_ "

He groaned. "Gos, one thing I do need to know," he said slowly, with his arm draped over his forehead. "Is there any emergency you haven't told me about? Are people, say... exploding?"

"No..." Gosalyn said hesitantly - almost suspiciously.

"No fires, no - looting, or anything like that?"

"No one can get outside," she said impatiently.

"Aha. Alright then," he said, rolling over onto his side and turning his back on her, "come back in about... let's say an hour. The city will keep until then."

He tuned out Gosalyn's irritated protests, and went back to sleep. After all, a sleep-deprived crimefighter was a potential liability.

* * *

A moment after he'd said Rhoda's name, Bushroot knew it wasn't her. He just blinked, and her face seemed to rearrange itself; she looked nothing like Rhoda Dendron, really, except that she was a brunette with glasses. She was thinner, her hair was lighter and pulled back in an unstyled ponytail, and her glasses were thicker. She also didn't have Rhoda's effortless elegance, although she looked cute enough.

It had only been wishful thinking that had made him see Rhoda in her. He was still shaken by the whole thing, though, and when the overgrown sapling put her down at his feet he blurted out, "Who are _you_?"

She looked back at him with wide eyes and a terrified expression. "I-I'm nobody," she said, cringing. She was afraid of him; yet again, another person who barely knew him was scared of him. Disheartened, he sighed, then noticed she was decidedly wobbly.

Bushroot took a step back and looked her over, and realized that she was bound from head to foot by vines. He frowned at her guards; no wonder she was scared of him, she probably thought he was some kind of madman. "Hey, come on, let her out of this. What's this supposed to do?" The saplings turned towards one another with an air of glancing at each other, before shrugging at him. "Well, this is just overkill! What's she going to do, start deforesting us or something?"

The vines binding the girl's arms to her torso loosened and then fell away. A second later her legs were freed too, although Bushroot suggested that a couple of smaller vines keep in place around her wrists and ankles just in case.

Once this was taken care of, she just stood there as though rooted to the spot. Bushroot hadn't exactly been expecting her to make a break for it, but he'd thought he'd get a bit more of a reaction than this. He tried smiling at her. "So, uh, sorry about that. They get a little overly enthusiastic, you know? But they mean well." He chuckled; she stared at the ground and didn't speak.

He felt obligated to prove to her that he wasn't _really_ the kind of guy who would kidnap a perfect stranger off the street and bring her home to torture her. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of any particular way to definitively prove that, so there was an awkward silence until he said, "Uh, well! Where are my manners? I should introduce myself!"

"I - I know who you are," the girl answered quietly. "You're Bushroot."

It wasn't a good sign that she'd heard of him, but he soldiered on. "Doctor _Reginald_ Bushroot," he corrected affably, and held out his hand. "I'm a scientist."

The girl's eyes flicked up to his oustretched appendage, and she tensed and looked back down quickly. "Um. I, um..."

"Oh come on. I'm not going to bite." He was starting to feel hurt. She still didn't move, so - aware of a slight whine creeping into his voice - he said, "So you're not even going to tell me your name or anything?"

She hesitated, then shook her head. "I just... it doesn't seem v-very s-smart to tell a s-supervillain your name-"

"I'm NOT a supervillain!" he said sharply; she flinched. Well, that hadn't done anything to help his cause; Bushroot took a moment to compose himself, even though her comment had left him more than a little irritated. More evenly, he said, "Okay, look. You're upset, I get that, and hey - I don't blame you! It's been kind of a crazy day for everyone! But, before you start pointing fingers and, and... _over-simplifying_ a guy's character, how about you get to know him a little, huh? Maybe?" No answer. He added, "It's not that I'm _bad_. They just like to say that about me. I'm just misunderstood."

Still casting her eyes to the ground, the girl nodded once, very slowly. Then she said, "Um... o-okay. So you... you're m-misrepresented in the - the m-media?"

He felt a wash of relief as he realized he was actually getting somewhere. "Exactly!" he said emphatically. "You know how it is - you do one thing you regret later, lose your temper for a moment, whatever... But see, when _I_ do it, they jump all over it."

The girl nodded again. She lifted her arms for a moment, apparently trying to cross them across her chest, and then lowered them again when the vines prevented her. She took a deep breath, and said, "W-well, they said that you... I mean, that you kind of... rob stores. And... and um, h-hurt people."

"Okay, yeah, but what they're NOT telling you is that those are special circumstances." That, he realized, sounded pretty lame. "Really," he said, "I could tell you all about them if you wanted. And - and I would _never_ hurt someone innocent. I mean, you know, someone who didn't _deserve_ it."

"Oh," she said quietly. He could hear in her voice what she was thinking: _no one_ deserved to be hurt. If she believed that, then she'd led a charmed life, he thought resentfully.

* * *

Beth was in the worst situation of her life. What was a person supposed to do when they were being held hostage? Just go along with whatever they were told, she thought, but she wasn't sure. She kept her head down, trying not to make eye contact - or _was_ she supposed to make eye contact? Maybe that was a, a thing that hostages did?

Honestly, she wasn't even sure she was a hostage. Hostage situations tended to be a standoff in front of authorities; even if they weren't, they were nearly always done so that the person doing the hostage holding could get something. Bushroot wasn't making any demands and there were certainly no authority types around that he could use her to bargain with.

She kept her head down and tried to breathe evenly and keep her head. Meanwhile, he kept talking to her like they were meeting up for coffee after answering a personals ad. Only every time she said the wrong thing, he seemed to take it harder, and now it was looking like she'd gone and completely offended him... which was probably pretty dangerous.

In the back of her mind she remembered the first thing she'd heard about Bushroot. He'd been a scientist in the botany department at St. Canard University, but after he'd completed an experiment that had somehow spliced his DNA with that of a plant, he'd attacked his former coworkers, killing two and eventually kidnapping a third. Beth had been scared and fascinated by this, because she had seriously considered doing her grad studies at SCU specifically because of the botany department. She had a tendency to tune out a lot of the details on the crime activities in St. Canard, but she'd kept track of Bushroot after that; his name turned up every so often, and it was never in a good way.

However, she realized, her life very likely depended on her staying in his good graces just now. And to do that, it seemed as if she was going to have to be friendly. She was going to have to ... socialize.

She was really, really bad at socializing.

She swallowed, and thought back to the advice her family had given her as a child: speak out, or everyone will think you don't like them. "S-so..." she began cautiously, lifting her head a little; Bushroot was half-turned away from her, with his arms crossed over his vine-like chest. When she spoke, he lifted an eyebrow in her direction. "Y-you... um... You had... special cir-circumstances?"

"Well, if you're _interested_ , yes I did." He paused, and with a closed expression said, " _Personal_ circumstances."

"Oh." That sounded like he wasn't going to go into them. She was a little relieved.

"But do you think the newspapers and the reporters mention that? Do they mention that I was driven to it? Do they mention the way my funding was cut off? No, _no_ , they don't even bother to get the full story. They get all their information from _Darkwing Duck_ ," he said, his voice rising into a mockingly nasal tone.

Beth nodded shakily. "Because... because he's the one who always fights you?"

"Oh, of course. That guy, he can't just let a guy live his own life. It's got to be dramatic, always the big alliteration and 'don't you go existing in MY city!' and things like that." He snorted and shook his head. "Now _that_ is a guy who makes up his mind right away and never lets you give a second impression."

"Wow, that... that's... terrible." Beth had never actually seen Darkwing Duck but she had been holding him in some esteem for the way he'd rescued Gosalyn the other night. Well, it would only make sense that someone who ran up against him a lot on the _wrong_ side of the law would not like him, she supposed.

Bushroot seemed to be relaxing a little bit again, so she figured she should just keep him talking for a while longer. There were few times in her life when she couldn't think of anything to say, but this was one of them... still, though, she was well aware that sometimes the way to get on someone's good side was by keeping your mouth shut and letting them do the talking. She knew when to listen, and she knew _how_ to listen. She could get through this. She took a step closer to him. "Um... Does he - Darkwing, I mean - well, what kinds of - what is it he has against you?"

With a shrug, Bushroot said casually, "Oh, you know... I might've sort of tried to kill him a few times. Well, I mean - that's how _he_ took it," he backpedaled quickly, waving a hand in the direction of Beth's slightly shocked face. "Heh, I mean... he's still standing, right? So obviously I wasn't actually going to _do_ it. But he's the kind of guy who pushes and pushes until he gets you to say and do things you end up regretting later." He sighed. "The whole thing has been a nightmare for my public image."

"I bet," said Beth sympathetically.

"Boy, you have no idea!" he said, leaning towards her and relaxing at last. He held a hand out. "Nobody knows this, but I'm a really mild-mannered guy at heart. I mean, all I even wanted was to _help_ mankind! I was going to end world hunger! Nobody ever talks about _that_ , do they?"

"Really? I didn't know that!" Beth said, genuinely surprised.

"Oh yeah. Hey look - you must be kind of rattled. Have a seat." He flicked his finger-leaves, and before she was able to ask if he meant for her to sit on the ground, something pushed up from the ground and knocked her off her feet. Startled, she looked down to find that she was entirely supported by a very vibrant, very buouyant flower that was holding her full weight, like a chair. When she looked back up at Bushroot, open-mouthed, he grinned and lifted his eyebrows at her. "Just a thing I can do," he said, his tone approaching charming. "Well, if you're comfortable... Let me tell you _my_ side of the story."

* * *

Gosalyn paused outside of her father's door, and hearing nothing, grimaced in frustration. It was 11 am and he was _still_ asleep! "Gimme a break," she said under her breath, and pushed the door open.

The lump in the bed gave a groan when she flipped his lightswitch on. " _Dad. Get up,_ " she said firmly.

"Gosalyn," he began in a bleary tone, "when _you_ pass 25, and all of a sudden all your joints start to creak when you stand up in the morning, you'll begin to understand..."

She blew out a breath in impatience. "C'mon, Dad! This is the kind of thing you wait all year for! The entire _city_ is in the thrall of a villain and you're the only one who can save them. So what's up with the sleeping beauty act?"

"The city can wait," he said, stretching leisurely. "We've been over this. If no one can get outside, then no one is in any immediate danger. And everyone will appreciate my dramatic rescue just a little bit _more_ if they've spent an hour or two fretting over their predicament, I might add."

" _Your_ rescue? Sorry, Dad, but you missed the boat on this one. The radio says that they called in Gizmoduck, and he's just wrapping things up -"

"WHAT!" There was a whir of motion that passed her and sent her hair flying; since her father's bed was vacated when she looked back into the room, she assumed it must have been him. Somewhere behind her, running through the house, he yelled, "Why didn't you wake me up!"

She rolled her eyes and uncrossed her fingers from behind her back. "Psych," she muttered, grinning. At least _that_ finally got him moving.

* * *

"But then Darkwing Duck showed up. _Again_ ," Bushroot finished, clenching his fists, "and he just couldn't keep his hands _off_ poor Posey. Well, what would _you_ do?"

"I don't know," Beth said honestly, trying to keep her tone purely sympathetic. She had no idea how she'd react, but then, she'd never grown her own spouse-to-be out of a potato. "What did you do?"

"Well, I'm a normal, red-blooded man - I mean, I _was_ , and those kinds of emotions don't just dry up when you get rid of your blood in favour of chlorophyll, y'know?" When Beth nodded, he said, "So I did what any normal, red-blooded guy would do when I found her in the arms of another man. That's all. It's the kind of thing you regret later, but in the heat of the moment..."

"I... I'm sorry, I - I don't know what..."

"Oh," he said, and chuckled. "Well, that's right, you're not a man. Not at _all,_ " he said in a lower voice, leaning closer to her and wiggling his eyebrows a little. "Well, I kinda tried to run him over with a lawnmower."

Beth felt like the moment following this went on forever, and she couldn't seem to move through it at all. Finally, she forced a nod. "Oh. That's what... anyone would do."

"Find me a red-blooded, emotional guy who wouldn't at least consider the idea."

"I bet I couldn't," she said.

She was surprised by how easy this was getting. She was not a good conversationalist - most of the time she just talked to fill up silences, regardless of whether the other person was answering or not - and she had never in her life been a good liar. But the more time went by, the more naturally she was able to follow along with what Bushroot was saying.

He was an odd mix, actually, and what she felt in reaction to what he said was an odd mix of emotions. As much as he would casually address the violence and criminal acts of his past - as much as that alarmed her - he also had such a pitiable past that she was almost surprised to find that she did, in fact, feel sorry for him. She couldn't quite be afraid of him anymore, because he just... he just so wanted to be _liked_.

Bushroot's story in his own words was almost nothing like what she had read. Motivated by altruism, he had used his own body as a guinea pig for a dangerous but potentially world-revolutionizing experiment. His coworkers had shunned and mocked him, sabotaging his work to make their own advances, and their deaths had been an accidental side effect of his inability to fully control his own new powers; if they had stayed out of his way, not provoked him, they'd have come to no harm. The coworker he'd kidnapped, Rhoda Dendron, had been a close colleague and had expressed an interest that he had returned, but Darkwing had interviewed her and filled her head with lies and rumours about him...

She didn't know what she believed. Of course Bushroot would tell his life story from his sympathetic perspective, and even though he denied that he'd meant to kill those two doctors, he still seemed awfully cavalier about the event.

But there were elements of the story that he couldn't disguise. If not all of it was true, he certainly believed that it was true, she was certain. He wasn't lying, not on purpose. More than that, though... The unhappiness of his background was so... so palpable. Beth recognized that and responded to it despite herself. She had to keep reminding herself that she was not hearing this story from an unbiased source, and that people had died in the course of this - and that, no matter his reasons, Bushroot had broken the law. Repeatedly, and willfully.

"So you get it?" he asked hopefully. "You understand?"

This was the big question, Beth sensed. She knew what she'd have to say, no matter whether she meant it or not; and she'd have to sound sincere. Everything depended on Bushroot believing this. She swallowed. "I do."

He broke out into a relieved smile. "See? See, I _knew_ it, I knew you just needed to get a chance to get to know me and you'd see..."

Beth nodded, and held out her hand to him. "My-my name is Beth Webfoot," she said. He took her hand in his and shook heartily, joyfully. The feeling of having her hand wrapped within a leaf was odd; more so was the sense of how flexible, and *strong*, the leaf was. It was almost papery, but firm, at once. "It's n-nice to meet you, Dr. Bushroot."

Still beaming, Bushroot said, "Oh, please, call me Reggie."

"Okay," she said quietly; she'd wondered if that ever happened in real life, if people really did that, corrected you for using their last names. She'd hoped for days that Drake Mallard would do that, but he hadn't, and she'd started to think maybe that only happened in movies. Oh, well, this whole day was turning out almost too surreal to be real life. "Um... Great, I - I will. Um... so... listen, I just - Reggie - I wanted to know, do you think..." She crossed her fingers that he wouldn't be offended and undo all the work she'd just done, and then she spit it out. "Do you think I could just... go home? I - I swear, I wouldn't go to the police or anything," she added hastily as his face fell. "I'll just go home, and I'll stay there, and I'll be perfectly happy. It's only that I haven't been home since yesterday and - and..."

Now he was looking confused. "You haven't? Where'd you come from, then?"

"Um, I got out through the skylight in the attic at the building I work in."

"Your work?" He raised an eyebrow. "What'd you do, sleep there?"

She flinched a little, and felt her cheeks growing warm. "N-never mind," she said in embarrassment. "I just... Look, you know you can trust me, and it's nothing personal, I just would like to get back home. And then you'll never have to worry about me again, really. I won't be in your hair and I *definitely* won't tell anyone where you are or anything. I don't even have anyone to... tell..."

She trailed off as she read the look on his face. He didn't look angry, or offended - just very, very serious. And his voice matched that as he said, almost sadly, "Listen, Beth, don't take this the wrong way, but... I can't ever let you leave."


	7. Act III, part 1

"I doubt that's going to work, LP," said Darkwing as he walked swiftly past his sidekick.

Launchpad turned from the door, where he'd been trying to get to the rather rope-like vines with a fireplace poker, without letting the plants grab the weapon from his grasp. At the sound of Darkwing's voice, he stepped away and lowered the tool. "Yeah, it's not the best thing to use, but uh..." He stopped and indicated the corner across from the door, where a pair of heavy pruning shears was embedded. "They already got to the gardening tools."

Darkwing shook his head. "We're not going to get out the front door anyway, no matter what you use. The whole house is covered. We've got to think outside the box."

"If by 'box' you mean 'house', Dad, we can't _get_ outside of it," said Gosalyn.

Holding up a finger, Darkwing smiled at his daughter. "O, ye of little faith," he said mildly. Gosalyn rolled her eyes. "These plants might have the strength of numbers-"

"And of elephants," added Launchpad, engaging in a tug-of-war with a vine over the poker.

"...Right... But they're not capable of improvisation. They might have every standard entrance and exit to every house on our street blocked, but I'm betting they won't have bothered to seek out any NON-standard exits!"

Gosalyn plopped herself on one of the twin armchairs and settled in. "So we check the passageway to the Tower, huh? Great idea, only, what do we do if they _did_ think of that?"

Darkwing gave a yank on Launchpad's scarf, pulling him away from his battle with the front door's vine. "Just let it go," he muttered, then turned back to Gosalyn. "THAT possibility, my dear daughter, is why 'we' are not checking. Launchpad and I are checking the passageway, and _you_ are going to stay here while... Why are you making that face?"

Smirking, Gosalyn crossed her arms. "Sooooo, what you're saying is, I'm going to stay home alone and take care of myself while you're on a case, huh?"

There was the slightest pause, and then Darkwing snapped, "NO, actually, because you're not ready for that yet and someone needs to take care of you so what I _meant_ was that you can wait here while we _test_ the passageway and then if it's working I will come back and _get_ you..."

"Uh-huh." Gosalyn grinned, as Launchpad chuckled while he had a seat in the other armchair. "So I'll just wait here for you to potentially get crushed by plantlife and never come back?"

"Oh, just... quit rubbing it in already," Darkwing grumbled, and he took her hand and pulled her to her feet before taking the place she'd been occupying on the chair.

It took approximately thirty seconds to discern that the passageway to the Tower was clear, and another forty-five to return to the house, get Gosalyn, and then get back to the Tower for good. By that time, Gosalyn was so glad to be out of the house that she gladly gave up giving her father a hard time, although there were numerous comments about how they should figure out how to rescue Honker.

"The best way to rescue ANYone, Honker included, is by tracking down Bushroot and tossing that green gangster in a jail cell!" Darkwing said firmly. Gosalyn, hanging halfway out of a mercifully open window, made an irritated noise over her shoulder at him in response.

"So you think Bushroot is behind this?" Launchpad asked, in such an innocent tone that now Darkwing was the one making irritated noises at _him_. He amended, "I mean, it sure looks that way, but I thought you might wanna, uh... 'entertain alternate possibilities'?"

Evenly and slowly, Darkwing answered, "Plants. Mutant plant-duck. We don't have to connect a whole lot of dots here." He grabbed his binoculars and took up residence in another window, across from the one Gosalyn was occupying. "Catching him and putting a stop to this leafy larceny should be a snap - I bet we'll be done by lunch time. Launchpad, get the Thunderquack ready, there's no way we could get the Ratcatcher running steadily in all this."

"Right-o!"

As Launchpad made his way to the plane, Darkwing eyed Gosalyn. "And you thought we needed _Gizmoduck_ ," he scoffed.

Gosalyn shrugged. "All I'm saying is, I bet he wouldn't've asked for an extra hour before getting to work." Darkwing's only response was more irritated noises.

* * *

Bushroot was determined to show his guest a good time, even if she was reluctant to stick around. He could understand that; after all, they'd just met, and as she'd said, she hadn't had a chance to go home all day. But as he'd explained to her, she had inside information and as much as he really did trust her, he still couldn't just let her go home. Nobody would do that. It was just asking for trouble.

Plus, it was nice to have someone to talk to.

In any case, he really wanted her to enjoy herself. Just because she had to stay, somewhat against her will, didn't mean she had to have a bad time. He hoped to make it clear that she wasn't a prisoner, she was a permanent guest. She still had a habit of stammering, and although he couldn't say for sure if this was due to nerves or just a speech impediment, he figured if he could get the stammer to go away it would be a good sign that she was relaxing. So far, she seemed to be speaking a good deal more clearly, so he was probably on the right track.

"So, hey! What sounds fun, the bumper cars? Ferris wheel? I mean, as long as we're here we might as well have a good time, huh?" he asked as they wandered around the amusement park.

Beth looked perplexed as she regarded him for a moment. "Um, really? I guess... I guess the bumper cars, really, though that's awfully bumpy - well, obviously."

"That's true," he agreed. "But the ferris wheel's supposed to be real smooth."

She shook her head quickly. "Oh no, I - I have this thing about heights..."

"Aww, that's too bad. A lot of the guys have been going on it all day!" He flagged down a large dandelion passing by. "Hey, you been on the ferris wheel, Leo?" It had; three or four times, it told him. "Yeah, you guys are gonna wear that thing out!"

When he looked back at Beth, she was watching him with a serious expression on her face. "So you can really talk to them. To the flowers I mean."

"Well, yeah. Like I told you before, it's a side effect of my experiment... They hear me and I hear them. And they _like_ me, too, all of them. It's neat, it's like having a bunch of secret friends no one else can talk to, but they can beat up bullies for you. Wish I'd had this deal going on when I was in elementary school."

Beth smiled and laughed lightly. "Heh. I can see how that'd be, um, appealing."

He laughed too, continuing to try to draw her out. "Well, so, you're sure you don't want to try the ferris wheel? The plants like it, and they don't like heights either."

"Really? They can tell the difference? I-I didn't think they could really... _see_."

"Well, you know. They don't usually like being out of contact with the ground for that long, that's what it really is. But they like the ferris wheel - I think they like being up in the fresh air." He smiled invitingly. "I'll stay with you... you won't have to worry about anything..."

She had her arms crossed over her chest, but after a moment's hesitation, she loosened up a little. "Well... o-okay, I guess I can give it a try..."

"Great, c'mon!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the currently-spinning ride; there was a small resistance as they got closer to the attraction, but she continued to let herself be pulled.

She stopped when they got there, and stared up at the highest seat. "Oh boy. Um, I'll wait here..."

Bushroot kept her hand in his. "Aw, live a little, huh? How 'bout we start slowly - I'll tell the guys running the machinery to stop it at the first level."

"But, but don't we have to keep going up before we can get back down..?" she asked. He noted that, as much as she sounded worried, she was letting him pull her towards the ride again.

They were about midway up the ride, and Beth was sitting stiffly, but at least she wasn't panicking. He let the shrub working the controls know to keep it level for a minute or so, until she got her bearings, and then to distract her from the height he asked, "So, you heard about me; now tell me about you!"

"Oh... me?" she asked, sounding surprised. "I, um, well... There's so little to tell..."

"Then no reason to hold back, right?"

She hung her head slightly, turning a little pink. "W-well, I mean, I don't have anything very interesting - no, um, experiments gone awry, or... big drama or, well, much of anything." She shrugged, apparently in way of apology. "Um, I work in a hardware store and I live alone. That's pretty much about it."

"That can't be _all_ of it." He wondered if he was pushing too hard. She had been so reluctant to even give her name before; but then again, it wasn't as if he was going to use this information to break into her house and steal all her belongings. Even though he _could_ do that if he'd wanted to; he would never want to. "Do you have any hobbies?"

"I guess... reading, I mean, I like to read... Fiction, non-fiction, it's all about the same as long as the topic is interesting. And really I think almost any topic is interesting, usually, unless it's something really ridiculous or - or gruesome. I'm not a fan of gratuitous violence or that kind of thing..."

He nodded as she went on, which she seemed inclined to continue to do. While she was directing her attention to him, he signaled for the shrub to raise them higher. When the machine started moving again she barely even seemed to notice. He smiled at her, and when she ran out of words he asked, "So... do you like plants?"

At this, she smiled too, and looked as if maybe she was even blushing a little. She ducked her head down. "Actually, I do. I went through a phase where I was really into botany and I almost majored in it in college. I was even thinking of focusing my grad studies on it, actually-"

"Oh, wow, you should've! You could have come to St. Canard U, they had a great botany department! And then we could've been colleagues in the same department!"

Beth didn't answer, she just looked out over the side of the ferris wheel car they were in. He wasn't sure if her worried expression was because of their elevation, or because of what he'd just said; as soon as he'd said it he'd realized what she knew of what had become of his other "colleagues".

He changed the subject as gracefully as possible. "So, how's the view?"

"It's... breathtaking," she said weakly. He noticed that her hands were white-knuckling the seat on either side of her, and he picked up the one closest to him and held it, smiling kindly. She returned it and loosened up a little. "Sorry to be such a wet blanket."

"Hey, lots of people have problems with heights."

"It's not a problem, precisely," she said carefully, "just a... a little discomfort, I guess. I just get very tense. Lots of things... get me tense," she finished with a self-conscious laugh.

"Well, you should just take this all in. We're not going to go much higher than this, and it's a nice view on a nice day." He gestured outward, and the green expanse of the quiet city spread before them. "Beautiful," he sighed, and drank in the sight.

Beth was silent, but when he took a look at her, she was staring out over the landscape as well, and a breeze picked up her bangs and blew them slightly. She looked peaceful.

When the ferris wheel started to move again, cycling them up one more step before beginning to go back down, she moved her hand in his grip slightly and said, "Dr. Bushroot...?"

At the way she said his name, the memory of Rhoda flashed into his mind again, once more unbidden. She didn't even _sound_ like Rhoda, but there was a certain way that Rhoda Dendron had spoken his name that Beth unwittingly echoed. A little discomfited, he corrected her. "Call me Reggie."

"Right. Sorry. Um, Reggie... Did you really do all that?" She pointed a little at the horizon, gleaming green.

"Yep, all me," he said; he still felt proud, thinking of the accomplishment.

Beth hesitated, then asked, "How? Just by... just by asking?"

"Nahhh. Well, I mean, some of it's that, but my range of communication doesn't go nearly that far. I mixed up a growth compound and put it into the city's water supply yesterday, then I gave a little suggestion to a few of the plants nearby and had them pass it along so that everyone would know what to do once the compound took effect."

"So it's a chemical thing?"

"Hormonal, mostly. With some extra-boosted plant food thrown in to help speed things along."

"That's amazing," said Beth in wonderment. "I mean I - I didn't know there were hormones that could produce this kind of effect."

"Well, the telepathic link helps too," Bushroot said with no pretense of modesty. "But, it's mostly gibberellin, some triacontanol, a few other little things here and there."

"Wow," said Beth in a breath. "That's amazing. I'd never have thought of all that."

"That's why I dedicated my life to plants," he said happily.

"Reggie," she said in a breath, gazing into his eyes. Bushroot felt as if something was changing, like something was starting to happen for him at last. He turned in his seat and put his other hand over hers. She leaned closer to him, just slightly, and said softly, " _Why_ did you do this?"

"What?" The question was so far from what he'd been anticipating of the moment that he couldn't parse it at first.

"You know... all of _this_ ," she said, and indicated the landscape again. He noticed that they were slowly descending; their ferris wheel car would be reaching the ground any time now, and although Beth was no longer showing signs of nervousness, she'd kind of killed the mood for going around a second time.

He took his hands from hers and set them stiffly on his knees. "I told you. They deserve it. They've relegated _me_ into just one greenhouse, outside of the city, for months now; it's everyone else's turn to see what that feels like."

If Beth noticed that he'd withdrawn from her, she didn't show a sign of recognizing the meaning of that action. Instead she said, "But most of the people who are stuck in there don't even know you. You're punishing them for something they've never done. I mean... _I_ didn't know you."

"You got out," he said, and turned to face her. They stared at one another until she looked away uncomfortably, towards the ground. "Look, all I'm saying is, if they don't deserve to be cooped up then they'll find a way out. Like you did."

Beth nodded weakly. When the car reached the ground level position and came to a stop, she looked relieved, and she stepped out of the ride and onto the level ground without words but still imparting a strong sense of gratitude.

* * *

Launchpad brought the Thunderquack down for a (very) rough landing a short distance from Bushroot's greenhouse. Ironically, the plant overgrowth was much less severe here; Darkwing could only surmise that he'd saved the hyperactive growth for his attack on the city but left the plants surrounding him alone, for whatever reasons.

He'd intended Gosalyn to stay inside the jet, but she'd refused. Launchpad was no help, of course, and he just stood by waiting while Darkwing argued with his daughter. She'd finally won that round after she'd pointed out that Bushroot might have plants on patrol and if they found her alone, who knew what they'd do? So Darkwing had acquiesced on the basis of "safety in numbers" and the idea that he'd be able to split his attention well enough to keep her safe *and* defeat Bushroot at the same time. Piece of cake, anyway.

They crept up on the greenhouse with a quiet stealth. Darkwing had his gas gun out and held at the ready; Launchpad and Gosalyn were unarmed, but keeping an eye out for ambush.

"Okay," said Darkwing in a low whisper. "Keep close... keeeeeep close..." He moved slowly, gliding along the perimeter of the greenhouse, very aware of the glass walls and his potential visibility. He dropped to the ground and held out his hand, indicating that Gosalyn and Launchpad should pause and keep down; behind him, they stood looking at one another, and shrugged. After a moment, he got to his feet again and waved them along once more. "On five, you two," he said quietly as they approached the door. "Be ready for an attack... One... two..."

It was at this point that Launchpad stepped on a rake, which shot up and missed his head but managed to smash straight through the glass wall they were bracing themselves against. The noise was intense and seemed somehow to last longer than it should have, as if there were a connected echo.

When it was quiet again, no one spoke. Then Gosalyn's voice cut through the silence. "Oops."

"Yeah. OOPS," snapped Darkwing.

Defensively, Launchpad said, "Well, it was just lyin' there!"

"Next time just find the doorbell!"

"I didn't-"

"SHH!" He held his gas gun at the ready, but nothing stirred. All three of them waited in silence for another moment, before Gosalyn peered into the hole in the greenhouse wall.

"Looks empty, actually, Dad. I think we're in the clear."

Darkwing let his gas gun fall to his side, looking disappointed. "Really? He's not even _home_?"

"Gos is right, DW, there's nothin' in there... All the plants are gone." Launchpad stepped away from the glass and looked inquisitively at Darkwing. "That's weird. Do you think somethin' happened to 'em?"

Darkwing stepped into the hole and looked around; Bushroot's greenhouse was indeed empty of life. He looked around, and poked his head back outside. "I'd say the most likely option is that they decided to take a holiday."

As he stepped back outside, something rustled off to the side of the greenhouse. None of them noticed it as they started back towards the Thunderquack, and behind them, a number of vines began to gather.

"So you think they just got up and walked off on vacation?" asked Gosalyn.

"Pretty much," Darkwing agreed. "After all, this is Bushroot; if he can get plants to uproot themselves and loot jewelry stores, he can give them all the day off just as easily."

"But what would they do? Go to an amusement park?"

" _I_ don't know, LP, but we'll track him down and put an end to this floral fiasco!"

Gosalyn felt something brush by her knee, and reached instinctively to push it away. "Well, I _will_ say, this is a lot more educational than being stuck in school-" She stopped when the whatever-it-was wrapped itself around her wrist. She looked down and found her arm encircled in green. "DAD!"

Darkwing spun around and pulled out his gun, but froze when he saw what the attacker was. "Vines! Figures," he said sharply, and tossed the gun to the side. He grabbed both of Gosalyn's hands, even as another set of vines made for his feet. He stamped on them as hard as he could, and tugged at his daughter until she was pulled free. "Launchpad! Run for it!" he yelled; they darted for the Thunderquack, but didn't make it far before more vines arrived. Each one was tripped in turn. Launchpad had the best luck at tearing himself free from the creepers, and he grabbed Gosalyn and piggybacked her the rest of the way to the jet.

Meanwhile, Darkwing found himself firmly caught by a much larger vine than the others he'd seen. He tried repeatedly but couldn't stand; the plant was not only holding onto him, it was squeezing his leg hard enough that the appendage was starting to go numb. Gritting his teeth, Darkwing searched in his cape until he found the chopping extension of his gas gun. "Okay, Snakey," he said, slapping the extension on, "it's mulch time."

It was messy, but effective.

He caught up with Launchpad and Gosalyn a few moments later. His sidekick already had the jet running and ready for takeoff, and Darkwing all but vaulted himself into the seat just before another set of vines caught up to him.

Once the jet was in the air, he was able to catch his breath. "Ambush! Far out, huh Dad?" said Gosalyn excitedly.

Darkwing wished, as he always did, that he'd managed to leave her at home. How much trouble could she have gotten into by herself? he wondered, knowing fully well that whenever he left her at home he returned and wished that he'd brought her along to keep her _out_ of mischief. With his heart still hammering, he settled his hand onto her head affectionately in a gesture she didn't quite seem to realize was as steeped in parental nervousness as it actually was. "Not a surprise," he said. "I should've seen that coming. Bushroot went out for the day but left the attack plants to guard the place."

"They're strong, DW," Launchpad added. "But they still didn't look as big as the ones around the house."

"No, I think he saved those for the rest of the city. Bushroot can do more than enough damage with regular-sized plantlife if he's got a small enough group to inflict it on."

"So what now?"

Darkwing sat up, and peered out the window. "He's down there somewhere, and right now, we've got a bird's eye view. So let's make the most of it."


	8. Act III, part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my goal was to get the 8th chapter of this up before 2010 came to a close and I did it! Unfortunately when I made that goal I thought this fic would be 8 chapters long. Instead it's going to have a 9th chapter (and I think the final chapter is going to be a little longer than the others just so I can be sure I cram everything in). Ah, well. I got this far! I'll have the final chapter up no later than January 27, I promise! Earlier if possible. Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, please review this chapter (please?), and see you next time!

There wasn't a lot to eat that was readily prepared, and none of the plants seemed ready to cook anything, so Beth was getting hungry. On the other hand, somehow or other Bushroot managed to get them operating a helium tank and so within fifteen minutes everyone in the area had at least one balloon (with the exception of the smaller flowers, who had had theirs confiscated when it became clear they were prone to floating away).

The whole image was quite surreal to Beth: a park full of sentient plants and their balloons. She'd nearly turned hers down, but then decided it would look rude, and she was still hoping to keep things as cordial as possible.

So far, so good. Bushroot seemed responsive to the little conversation she was able to provide, and she was starting to think that she might even be able to talk him into reversing whatever he'd done to the plants and letting everyone out again. Surely he didn't really intend to keep them inside forever...

But he'd _killed_ his colleagues, a voice at the back of her head reminded her. Accidental or not, he'd killed them...

She shook her head. She couldn't think of that, or else she might not be able to keep up her pleasant attitude with him. She had to stay friendly.

The plant thing - her honest liking of them, his inquiring about that - had been lucky. She could play that up. She turned and looked at him; he was walking about holding a pink balloon, which brought a smile to her face.

"So, Dr- Um, Reggie," she began, with the intent of making another stab at friendly conversation, "what's it like? The, the whole plant-duck thing, I mean."

Bushroot cocked his head, evidently considering the question, and said thoughtfully, "Oh, you know... It's new, exciting, different... You've got to get used to a whole different kind of eating, drinking through your roots, so on... then there's the telepathy, the regeneration, the being in constant touch with nature - that's all pretty great. A few things are little inconveniences, like the dependence on the sun, the constant risk of leaf mites... The crushing loneliness of knowing you're the only one of your kind..."

He looked at her, then, right into her eyes; and she found that she didn't have anything to say in response. After a moment, he smiled and shrugged. "Just like any other kind of life, I guess," he said lightly. The look in his eyes was not so light.

She had to think of something to say, but nothing was coming; so she was still standing there with her mouth slightly open just _staring_ when the hibiscus bush came up and gestured wildly. Bushroot's eyes narrowed. "He _was_? Did they get him?" More gesturing, and then Bushroot clenched his lefthand leaf into a fist and practically growled. "I _knew_ he'd show up sooner or later! I just _knew_ he couldn't keep his giant bill out of my life!"

"Who? What's happened?" Beth asked urgently; any sign of negative emotion made her nervous, and Bushroot seemed able to flip on a switch at pretty much any given time.

"Oh, who else. Darkwing Duck is out and about, ready to ruin my life yet _again_. He's already ransacked my greenhouse." He sighed. "He won't stop at anything to track us down. Hate to cut things short, but it looks like we'll have to get going."

She noticed the "us" and felt uncomfortable. "Oh. Um. Going? Where would we go? Should I... should I go home?" The idea that this might be her chance, at last, was so appealing that she could scarcely keep the eagerness from creeping into her voice.

He shook his head. "Nah, stick with me. The best place to go is the greenhouse - it's cozy, you'll love it, and I've even got it kind of furnished!" He took her hand and started walking, and she was forced to follow, albeit reluctantly.

"Well - wait, didn't you just say Darkwing had ransacked...?"

"That's why it's the best place," Bushroot explained as they went. "He won't think to look there again for a while, so we'll have some time to get ready for him. Although..." He paused, thought for a moment, and then addressed the hibiscus. "Tell everyone to keep an eye out for Darkwing, wherever he might turn up, and if they see him to just pull him into pieces."

"NO!" Beth said, surprising even herself. She tugged at Bushroot desperately. "You can't do that! You can't just kill things! No killing!" When she saw how he was staring at her, she quailed just slightly. "Um... please."

He remained silent a moment longer, then said gently, "Beth, I know where you're coming from, and believe me... I'm a pacifist too! But with Darkwing you have to make an exception. Darkwing just doesn't *stop*. I've tangled with him before and he's like crabgrass... the only way to get rid of him is to wipe him out completely."

She shook her head forcefully. "I'll talk to him. I'll talk to him for you and... and I'll vouch for you. Then you can put everything back the way it was, and he'll have to leave you alone!"

Bushroot smiled at her almost fondly. "Gee, you'd do that for me?"

"Sure!" Now that she'd said that she would, she'd have to, although given the option she'd much prefer to write a strongly-worded letter. Still, though, if it would help... She was no longer sure if she was more interested in helping Bushroot, or herself at this point.

He shifted his grip on her hand so that he was holding it fully instead of just gripping it to pull her along. "If only that would work," he said softly. "Well, for you... I'll try. We can't reason with Darkwing, but we'll see what else we can do." Addressing the hibiscus, he said, "Cancel that 'pull him apart' order and just keep an eye out for him. Slow him down any way you can, and report back to me regularly with any news about his location." He turned back to Beth. "That should give us some time to get ready. I've got an idea."

His tone sounded much more positive, and Beth's hopes buoyed. She was in so far over her head, but maybe this was about to take a better turn; she couldn't help hoping that Darkwing Duck's involvement would be good for her, and at least, maybe she could minimize the impact it would have on Bushroot. She let herself be led to Bushroot's greenhouse.

* * *

The island city of St. Canard was not small, but it could be covered quickly by jet. If all you needed was to get from one side of the city to another, a jaunt in the ThunderQuack could get you there in under ten minutes, assuming that the wind conditions were right and that you didn't mind a very sudden, rough, potentially life-threatening landing.

Patrolling was different, though. Patrolling had to be done at a lower altitude to catch the details, more slowly to be sure you didn't skip important parts, and with several passes so that you knew you were seeing what you thought you were seeing. In the evenings Darkwing usually contented himself with a general extended ride-around so that he could investigate anything that looked out of place.

Right now, in the mid-afternoon searching for a single plant in the middle of a city of plants, a different kind of patrolling was needed. This was a case for serious scrutiny, for multiple examinations of minutiae, for absolute attention to any article of interest. They were criss-crossing each area multiple times in order to be sure of the environment; it was time-consuming and deeply, deeply boring.

But Darkwing knew that he alone stood the possibility of noticing the kind of tiny clue they were looking for - that no one else could possibly... He cut himself off abruptly and raised his binoculars to his eyes as they passed over an amusement park. "It-"

"Hey Dad, check it out!" said Gosalyn, at the same moment that Launchpad put in, "Look DW, that ferris wheel's moving!"

"I _know_! I was just about to _say_ that!" Darkwing threw down the binoculars and turned to glare at them. "Don't point things out until I get the chance to!"

"Uh, okay..." Launchpad said, scratching his head.

"Brother," Gosalyn muttered.

Darkwing ignored them and turned back to the windshield. "Take us down, LP, we need to check that out."

The amusement park was active, with the rides running, but essentially empty. There were a few scattered leaves all over the park, but no live plants in sight. "They were here, though," said Darkwing as they walked through the park. " _He_ was here."

"Too bad they didn't leave footprints so we could figure out where he _went_ ," Launchpad said.

"Or a breadcrumb trail," added Gosalyn. "Dad, what do we do? Just get back in the plane and keep flying around? This isn't telling us anything."

"We'll find something," said Darkwing, who was not about to admit that they weren't going to find anything. He pulled out his magnifying glass and scoured the ground with it. "Everyone leaves some kind of a trail, and all it takes is a trained eye to locate that trail and follow it to its logical end."

Gosalyn and Launchpad followed him silently for a few moments as he half-walked, half-crawled down the streets of the park. After about five minutes, Gosalyn asked, "Um, Dad? Do you... actually have any particular _thing_ you're looking for?"

"I'll know it when I see it," Darkwing answered in a mutter. His back was starting to hurt.

Launchpad pointed across the street. "Is it that? 'Cause if not, uh, maybe we oughta get moving."

Darkwing looked up to see another swarm of plant life coming their way. He resisted the urge to throw the magnifying glass at them before making a run for it, and instead replaced it inside his cape and pulled out his gas gun with the chopper attachment he'd put on earlier. "Keep behind me, both of you," he said authoritatively, "this is going to get messy."

The air was filled with a persistant buzzing, and then a moment later, with a lot of small pieces of leaves.

It was messy. But it was relatively quick.

"Keen gear, Dad, that was wicked!" said Gosalyn exuberantly as the air cleared.

Darkwing put the gun away, but looked around warily. "I don't think that'll be the last of them. Let's get back to the ThunderQuack and get airborne before Round 2." Movement caught his eye and he turned to see a single, smaller bush making a run for it.

"That little guy's getting away!" Launchpad said, but Darkwing shook his head.

"Let him go. We need to get in the air right away - that little guy is going to take us straight to the Vegetable In Charge."

* * *

His greenhouse had a gaping hole in it when he arrived home, and Bushroot frowned but said nothing. He led Beth inside with as gentlemanly an air as he could muster, and asked if there was anything she needed.

"Um, well..." She looked around, as if for inspiration, and then she asked, "Do you have any herbal tea?"

" _Herbal_ tea?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, and she turned slightly pink.

"Oh - oh, I guess you wouldn't, would you? Well... um... anything to drink at all, then?"

"Well, I have some coffee but it's made from fertilizer... Y'know, once you get used to the taste it's really addictive."

She made a face. "That's okay. I'm not much for coffee anyway."

He smiled; Rhoda had been a coffee fiend, he remembered. She would only drink it with two sugars, though, and cream, and if possible she always preferred a latte. He shook himself out of the memory. "Uh, there is plenty of water around... Hold on and I'll find you a cup or something..."

Once he'd unearthed something that was vaguely cup-shaped, she took it and insisted on washing it out herself so that he could put things in order. After that she wandered around and he heard her periodically gasping or speaking quietly. At one point she called to him, "You have cuttings from a scoliopus hallii?"

"Oh, oh yeah... I was hoping to breed a hybrid with Eminium regelii so that it could seed better but I haven't gotten around to it yet."

She appeared from behind a hanging of garden hose, wide-eyed and smiling. "This is amazing! You have _everything!_ It's - it's like being in a candy store!"

Bushroot grinned. "Aw, I don't even have _half_ of the things I'd _really_ like," he said modestly. "But I'm working on that."

"You don't mind if I keep looking around, do you?"

"Hey, of course not! Make yourself at home!" He watched her disappear into the wilds of the greenhouse again, and then turned back to the formula he'd been working on for the past few minutes.

It was nearly ten minutes before he was finished, and it was longer than that before she turned up again, this time holding a potted, half-formed growth of pleione and looking at him in questioning amazement.

"Like it?"

"You can't even _get_ this here!" she said breathlessly.

He shrugged. "I have friends in low places."

"Gosh." She put the pot down, very gently, and joined him at his workbench. "What're you doing?"

"Just finishing something up. Hey, you hungry?"

Beth looked relieved, and for some reason, guilty. "Oh boy, am I glad you asked that. I didn't want to be rude or anything but I haven't eaten in _hours_ and sometimes if I don't eat I get kind of light-headed, and I think it might be happening now, and I hope you don't mind my doing this but I checked and I didn't see anything around here that looked like, um, people food..."

"Yeah... we don't keep a lot of that here." He lifted the vial of formula he'd just completed. "You could try this..."

She looked around the greenhouse again, only half-attending to him. Her answer didn't seem to be in response to what he'd just offered. "I was thinking, also, you know, speaking of getting hungry - I left Stella at home alone, she's my plant-"

"Really? Just one plant?"

"Oh, well no, not really. But Stella is a Tropical Blue Blossom and she has a funky watering schedule where she only needs watering every two-"

"Two-and-a-half days," he put in, and she nodded.

"Right! So anyway, this morning was the watering day and I missed it, and I'm getting worried..."

The stammer was gone, he noticed. On the other hand, it seemed to have been replaced by what she called 'light-headedness', and so her sentences were all twice as long as they needed to be. He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to focus her a little. "Okay, tell you what. Once we get everything straightened out with Darkwing Duck, we'll go by your place and take care of Stella."

She blinked at him, and then her eyes lowered away from him. "Oh. Um, sure, we could do that."

She didn't say that she wanted to go home by herself, and she didn't have to. He could tell anyway. He withdrew his hand, and looked over the rim of the vial he'd been working with, at the bright green formula within. All the time they'd spent together all day, and she still wanted to leave him... No matter what, she'd always want to leave him. There was no way to make her want to stay.

He looked back up at her, and held up the vial again. "So - you should really drink this."

Beth's attention was caught this time. "That? It's awfully... green," she said dubiously. "Um, what is it?"

He had nothing to lose, he figured, by telling her the truth. "It's a chlorophyllic formula that would... well, it'd basically alter your cells and turn them from animal to plant."

She didn't speak or move.

"You know, like me," he added.

She still didn't move, she just stared at him. Her eyes were wide and, he noticed now, very very blue.

In a weak attempt at joke, he said, "It'd solve your hunger problems..."

"I-" Beth spoke just one syllable, and then stopped, and then started again. Her voice was very low. "I... don't want to be a plant."

"It's really not a bad thing! In fact it has a lot of advantages!"

"But I don't _want_ to," she said again, slightly louder this time.

He lowered the vial and stared at her, pleading with his eyes. "You said you'd help me against Darkwing Duck."

"Of course I will! But I, I don't have to be a *plant* to talk to him!"

"Talking won't work! Believe me, I oughta know!"

She frowned. "Then I don't know what you expect me to-"

Bushroot waved his hands, gesturing at himself. "All this stuff I can do? You'll be able to do it too! And there's no _way_ he could fight _two_ of us! And, and we wouldn't need to kill him," he added, anticipating her argument. "Once he sees we're unstoppable he'll have to let us go, and we can... go wherever we want." He slowed as he finished, because she was looking at him like she didn't know who he was. Like she'd mistaken him for someone else and was just now realizing that.

After a few moments of silence, Beth broke eye contact and stared at the floor. With her arms crossed tightly across her chest she said, "I'm not going to drink that, Reggie. I'll still help you but I'm not going to do that for you."

Bushroot looked down as well, and he saw her feet, just inches away from his own roots. He watched as vines crept around them, and started up her legs, and then he sighed as she gave an alarmed squeak when she realized what was happening. "Wow. Boy, I wish you hadn't said that," he said sadly.

She was restrained quickly, but she was terrified, pulling at the plants pinning her arms to her body. "Wait! Reggie! Reggie, please-"

He stepped forward and waved his hands. "No no, don't be scared! Beth, Beth, I'm not going to hurt you! I promise!"

"...No..?" she asked, slowing a little but still clearly frightened.

Smiling a little, he cupped her face in his hand. "I _promise_. I'm not that kind of guy."

"Okay..."

He gestured to the plants that they should move her over to the operation tables he had never gotten rid of, the ones he'd looked at so many times after Rhoda and thought he should just uproot them and throw them out, but had kept out of a vague sense that he might have use for them one day. As they transported her he said, "It just means we're going to have to do this the hard way."


	9. Act III, part 3

  
She was stupid. So, so stupid. She _knew_ he was a criminal, and she'd tried to keep that in mind, but she'd let her guard down - so distracted by that amazing greenhouse, put at ease by his friendliness and his stories of how easy-going a guy he was... And now look.  


  
Beth struggled against the vines that were pushing her down onto the platform and found there was absolutely no give. She tried appealing verbally. "Reggie, don't - don't do this. Reggie?"  


  
He was standing over her but not looking at her; instead his attention was on some kind of setup with a potted flower and a bunch of wires. "Reggie - Bushroot! Don't! Y-you're not this kind of person!"  


  
At this point he stopped, and looked at her beseechingly. "Look, we'll talk about this later. In a few minutes you'll have a _totally_ different viewpoint on this, trust me."  


  
She felt cold. He wasn't at all upset or touched by her reaction; it was like he was blocking the whole thing out. "BUSHROOT!"  


  
He elevated a large piece of machinery that looked like a transistor or conductor, and then he turned to her. "I promise this won't hurt! I mean... in the long run. There's a little bit of electrical discharge that isn't very comfy, but-"  


  
"You don't have to do this. This- this isn't who you are. Listen - listen," she said in desperation, straining to keep her tone level. "No one knows so far that you caused the plant overgrowth, right? So, so let me go, then when Darkwing gets here, we'll tell him that you had nothing to do with it but that you're going to fix it! You can fix it, right? I mean... you figured how to use giberrellin to cause the growth, can't you use - what's the antagonist of gibberellin?"  


  
"Paclobuzatrol," he said musingly. "I guess I could find a way to make that work..."  


  
"Yes! And get the plants back to normal! We'll tell him you've been working on it all day-"  


  
"Yeah, right, like he's gonna believe me about that. Heck, _I_ wouldn't, under the circumstances!"  


  
"Okay - okay," Beth said breathlessly, "well, I'll vouch for you, and he'll have to believe me, because..." She blanked; there was really no reason he should believe her. They were total strangers, and even though they were both acquaintances of Drake and Gosalyn Mallard, that didn't mean she had unimpeachable references. Oh well, she needed to say _something_. "Because I - I don't have any criminal record! So, so... you won't need to fight him and I won't n-need to be a plant and you can just... let me... go..."  


  
He looked at her levelly as she trailed off, and there was something in the back of his eyes, something unsettling but also very sad. This expression was what quieted her, and it kept her quiet; and then he said, "If I let you go, then what? Are you just going to go home like nothing ever happened?"  


  
"Yes! Yes, absolutely!" She nodded furiously. "I won't say anything about this to any-"  


  
"Like nothing ever happened," he said miserably, his tone biting. He closed down and turned away, and she mentally kicked herself. _Wrong answer._  


  
"W-well, but I mean, of c-course we can st-still be fr-"  


  
"Oh right! Right, like you're just going to drop by on weekends and hang out, huh? Someone like you, coming by of her own free will to spend time with a freak like me?" She cringed as he spun back to face her, both of his leafy hands clenched into fists. "No. You'd never do that. You'd go on back home to your sunshine and your happy life, and forget all about me while I just wilted away with my memories, right?"  


  
"No!" she cried - choked, almost - and, sadly, she knew she was lying. Right now, she never wanted to come back here.  


  
"Beth." He stopped, and softened, visibly pulling himself back. When he spoke again it was much kinder, and sincere. "I'm sorry. I... I really like you. You're the first person I've had a real conversation with in months... who wasn't a supervillain, I mean. But... you're never going to stay with me. I'm not a fool, I can see that. Why would you?"  


  
"Oh, Reggie... What if I promise to-"  


  
"No." He shook his head. "The only way I can get you to stay my friend is this way. But look, it won't be bad for you like it's been for me. Because we'll have each other." He smiled; the expression only slipped a little as she groaned and started struggling against the bonds holding her down. "Aw, Beth, just give it a try before you make your mind up, huh?"  


  
"REGGIE!" she said in exasperation. "This isn't like trying out a new pair of shoes!"  


  
"Okay, granted, but I'll walk you through the whole thing..." He moved for her, and reached for a lever. Horrified, she made one last effort.  


  
"PLEASE WAIT! I - I, listen, I'm a horrible conversationalist and I snore at night! You don't need to settle for me when you could have a bunch of friends so please just listen to my idea, my great idea, please, okay?"  


  
He stopped with his hand an inch away from the lever.  


  
She gasped for breath, trying to calm her heart as it thumped against her ribcage. "You - you - here's what you, what you do. Okay. So no one knows you did all this right? So... when you fix it - you uh - ev-everyone will love you. They'll all line up to- to meet th-the person who saved them. Who let them out. You'll be a hero. Wouldn't... would that be great?" she asked weakly. She was starting to feel dizzy and although she'd never fainted before, she wouldn't be surprised if she was leading up to that. She was so terrified that she felt like she could hardly breathe.  


  
Bushroot lowered his hand slowly to his side, away from the lever. "Well..." he said softly, "that does sound neat. Do you really think that would work?"  


  
She smiled encouragingly. "Do you... have any idea how happy I was to get outside this morning? Haha - I could've k-kissed the ground. I-if you let everyone out... a-and they all _know_ it was you who freed them... I-I just bet-"  


  
"Hmmm." He put a leaf to his chin, pondering. "Maybe..."  


  
They were interrupted by a sound of shattering glass and then a hiss, as a puff of coloured smoke began to fill one side of the greenhouse. Bushroot's expression contracted into anger again. "Aw, come on! One hole wasn't enough!?" he snapped.  


  
A disembodied voice filled the air as the smoke began to spread. "I am the Terror that Flaps In the Night," it said; if this was Darkwing Duck, he certainly had a strong flair for the dramatic. Beth wasn't entirely sure what a Flapping Terror was, but it had a certain style.  


  
Turning back to Beth, Bushroot said quickly, "Look, I see what you're saying, but there just isn't time for this. Sorry." And he yanked the lever down.  


  
Beth shrieked as the platform she was strapped to began to rise skyward, and Bushroot stalked off to deal with Darkwing Duck.  


  


* * *

  


  
They'd left Gosalyn safe in the ThunderQuack, and after the earlier attacks she had only protested halfheartedly and given up after only a minute or so. After the little plant's retreat trajectory had become clear, Darkwing had instructed Launchpad to overtake the plant just before he reached the Greenhouse and it had been mulched before it could deliver its news. With the element of surprise on their side, Darkwing had plotted their entrance.  


  
"I am the month-long drought that kills your crops! I... am Darkwiiing Duck!"  


  
And, at the moment, he had no real idea where Bushroot was. He tried not to show it as he let the smoke disperse into the greenhouse, but since it was always anticlimactic to enter the room and have his entrance be met by silence, he was a little bit put out. He was attempting to surreptitiously look all around the place when something tackled him from behind.  


  
"Whoa, look out, DW!" yelled Launchpad a few seconds too late, and Darkwing twisted around just before he hit the floor and found that he was being pinned by that giant flytrap dog that Bushroot always kept around.  


  
He grimaced. "Releasing the hounds, huh Bushy? Nice welcome!"  


  
"Well, if you're going to trespass on private property," came a peevish voice from off to Darkwing's left, "then it's only fair that I defend myself."  


  
"Pff! I wouldn't call siccing your minions on me the same thing as _you_ defending yourself," Darkwing taunted. Somewhere in the background, he was aware of some kind of electric humming; from the sound of things, Bushroot had some sort of fiendish machinery going. He gave a great heave, and pushed Spike off of his legs. The huge plant took the momentum and went hurtling towards the wall. He didn't see where he went, but something broke. Bushroot, stepping into the scene, barely spared his pet a glance.  


  
Instead, he aimed a hefty glare at Darkwing. "I'm busy right now, Duck! You're interrupting personal business, so I'm giving you until the count of five to leave and then..." He waved his viney appendages, and a small jungle seemed to grow up around Darkwing and Launchpad. Launchpad made a little strangled noise.  


  
In response, Darkwing took out his gun and revved up the blade attachment. He narrowed his eyes, and Bushroot narrowed his eyes as well, and then over the shriek of the blades and the hum of the machinery he suddenly heard someone yelling. He turned off the spinning blades, and looked around. "What was that?"  


  
Launchpad was looking as well, and he saw the platforms first. Pointing to the far end of the greenhouse, he said, "I think there's someone up there!"  


  
"So, up to your old tricks again, huh Twiggy?" Darkwing asked.  


  
"Oh, mind your own business!" Bushroot snapped. He shot one of his arms out and it extended rapidly, winding around Darkwing's wrist and pulling. The gun was yanked from his grip and it spun away across the floor.  


  
"LP - go take care of whoever that is," Darkwing instructed, grappling against Bushroot's grip; his sidekick nodded and took off, and Darkwing turned his attention back to the plant-duck trying to ensnare him. He pulled against the vine, and as he expected, Bushroot tightened his snare; Darkwing pulled harder for a few seconds longer, then reversed and threw himself at his enemy. Bushroot, taken by surprise, stumbled backwards and Darkwing used his momentum to make a flying leap which landed on Bushroot's shoulders. They tumbled to the ground, and in the ensuing confusion Darkwing's arm was released. He made a dash for the gas gun.  


  


* * *

  


  
Whoever the person was up on that platform, they were yelling like crazy up there, but he could hardly hear it. As Launchpad got closer to the machinery it got a lot louder - he hadn't realized so much was being drowned out. He was actually surprised that they'd managed to hear her (was it a her?) when they had.  


  
The platforms were tall, and he couldn't see the tops. This looked like the same experiment Bushroot had tried before, with that lady scientist; without being able to see, Launchpad couldn't be sure that the he wasn't already too late. He searched about for an "off" switch but couldn't find anything clearly marked. There was some kind of lever off to the side; he crossed his fingers and pulled it.  


  
To his immense relief, the humming stopped and the platforms started to lower again. When it reached the ground, the form lying on it was still. He hoped she'd just fainted and wasn't more hurt than that... but on the other hand, at least he could see brown hair and pale yellow feathers, and nothing green. That had to be a good sign, right?  


  
"Miss?" he said cautiously, moving closer in case she needed help. To his surprise, she immediately pushed with her shoulders against the bonds holding her down, with more force than he'd expected. "Hey, calm down - you're safe now." He grabbed the bond that was circling across her shoulders and pulled; it gave, and she sat up right away and put her head into her hands. He still hadn't gotten a good look at her face, but she was clearly upset. "Uh, did it... did it finish?" he asked gently.  


  
She shook her head slowly. "I don't think so," she answered in a wobbly voice. "But I just... oh gosh... you have NO IDEA the kind of day I'm having," she finished weakly. She lifted her head and looked up at him, about to say something else. Then her eyes widened. "Launchpad?"  


  
"Beth?" They stared at each other for a moment, and then said in unison, "What are _you_ doing here?"  


  
Then there was another silence, this one slightly awkward. Launchpad recovered and scrambled for an excuse - the first one that came to mind was, "Uh, I'm here to save you!"  


  
Beth looked completely befuddled, and not quite convinced. He realized that, on the heels of asking her what she was doing there, that was probably the absolute stupidest thing he could have said. He forged on anyway, in the hopes that maybe if he just kept going, she wouldn't notice the blunder. "I mean, well, D- Darkwing, he was lookin' for someone who knew you who could help track you down, an' I volunteered. So we didn't know you were _here_ , specifically, but ... there ya go."  


  
"Oh." She nodded, and then looked across the greenhouse to where Darkwing and Bushroot were apparently taking turns chasing one another. "But... but how did _he_ know I was missing? I mean, I haven't spoken to anyone except Henny all day, and..."  


  
Launchpad swallowed nervously. "OH, well, he's a real good detective. Heh heh."  


  
She still looked confused, but she nodded slowly as she watched two trees tossing Darkwing back and forth between themselves. "Oh," she said again, sounding distracted.  


  
"So... how DID you end up here?" he asked as she started to stand up shakily. He offered his arm, and she took hold and leaned on it for a moment before straightening up.  


  
"Well, it's... it's a really long story." She looked uncomfortable, so he didn't press the issue. "Is he... Darkwing, I mean, is he going to be okay? Does he need help or something?"  


  
The roar of a chainsaw reached them even from where they were standing, and a moment later pieces of the two trees when flying. Bushroot gave a yelp of alarm and took off running as Darkwing emerged from the wreckage of branches and leaves. Beth stiffened slightly but didn't say anything more.  


  
"He's fine," Launchpad said.  


  


* * *

  


  
The whole thing was over very shortly after that. Bushroot caved in the face of the conifer carnage, and gave up, Darkwing did a little bit of gloating, from the sound of things Launchpad had managed to rescue Bushroot's captive, and everything seemed to be going well. Darkwing had just slapped some handcuffs onto Bushroot's skinny vine-wrists, knowing fully well that they weren't likely to stay there or do a whole lot of good but it was the symbolism that he liked, and he said, "Hope _you_ like being cooped up, Bushy, because you're going to be stuck inside for quite a while now!"  


  
"No, wait!" yelled a woman's voice, and Darkwing turned to see a figure darting up to him. A female figure - evidently Bushroot's kidnappee. A... familiar figure.  


  
No. It couldn't be her. It _couldn't_.  


  
"WHA-" he began as she got close, but behind her, Launchpad was shaking his head vehemently. Darkwing closed his mouth before the syllable was entirely finished.  


  
"So, Darkwing Duck," Launchpad said loudly, emphasizing every word in a wooden tone the way he did whenever he was trying to cover up for something, "you were right about my friend being here. Just like you said, and now she is rescued, thanks to your detective skills."  


  
Darkwing's mouth opened wordlessly for a few moments before he was able to manage, "...Right." Honestly, Launchpad just got worse and worse at lying. Oh, well. He turned to look at Beth Webfoot - he still couldn't quite believe this was a coincidence - and said grandly, "Well, thank you for your help, Mr. McQuack, you've got good instincts. Miss, you don't have to worry about this whacked-out weed here anymore, he'll be-"  


  
"Oh, um, Mr. Darkwing-" She sounded like Honker, he thought for a moment as she stammered out an interruption. "Well, of course I appreciate your coming here to rescue me, but... but... I think there's, um, a kind of misunderstanding involved here. Um, you see... Bushroot, he, he didn't do anything wrong."  


  
"What?" said Darkwing.  


  
"What?" echoed both Launchpad and Bushroot. Darkwing shot a look at his enemy, who covered his mouth sheepishly.  


  
"W-well... Really, he... he didn't do anything. Much. I mean, anything at all. I mean I guess you could say that-"  


  
"Okay. Let's just cut to the chase here," Darkwing said impatiently. This was getting to be too much. "This guy wrapped up the whole city, kidnapped you, and tried to make you his science experiment and you say he didn't do anything wrong?"  


  
Beth cringed, but shook her head. "P-pretty much..."  


  
He crossed his arms. "Explain that one."  


  
"W-well..." She dropped her eyes and looked at her feet, then wove her fingers together and tugged at them. It was amazing, like she just couldn't keep from fidgeting. "S-see, I know the, um, the plants all over the city thing _looks_ like Bushroot did it, but... um..."  


  
"It wasn't me!" Bushroot chimed in suddenly.  


  
Darkwing glared at him. "No leading the witness!" Bushroot retreated again.  


  
With all the attention on her, Beth looked very uncomfortable, but she picked the thread back up. "Yes, it - it wasn't him. He, he doesn't know who it was, but... but just before you got here, Bushroot was _just_ telling me about how he could make an antidote out of Paclobuzatrol and it would shrink the plants back down and then they'd let everyone out - see, Paclobuzatrol is an opponent of gibberellin, which is a plant growth hormone that we- I mean Bushroot thinks might be behind this sudden rapid growth and so he thinks if he makes a formula with-"  


  
Darkwing found that he was making a sound, a kind of part-exhalation and part-groan. Beth seemed to hear it, because she suddenly stopped talking and fell into an awkward silence.  


  
"So," Darkwing said to Bushroot, "Pacman booze-a what?"  


  
"Paclobuzatrol. And as a matter of fact that's exactly what I was saying just before you got here. We were literally just discussing it."  


  
"Right." Darkwing turned back to Beth and said, "So he kidnapped you so that you could give your input on how to reverse all this, then."  


  
She nodded. "Right. I mean no! I mean, um-" She swallowed and said, "He didn't kidnap me at all. I was just visiting. I - not that I - I mean 'visiting' is not the right word, precisely, but I got out from the, from the place I was stuck in, and um... I guess I just... ran into Reg- um, Bushroot on the street? And we came back here because I, heh - it's funny - I actually have a background in botany, believe it or not, so it made sense. To, to talk about it."  


  
"And then you decided to become a plant duck."  


  
"No! Oh no! No, I do not want to be a plant duck. Or any kind of plant. At all." She shook her head very sincerely as she said this, and out of the corner of his eye, Darkwing saw Bushroot's head droop. Since no one else was speaking, Beth didn't seem to be able to keep from filling the silence; she added, "Ever."  


  
Darkwing stared at her, trying to figure her out. She fidgeted some more, twiddling her fingertips together, and after he'd let her move uncomfortably for some time, he said, "Sooooo, if you didn't _want_ to be up on that platform, and Twiggy didn't do anything wrong, then just what, pray tell, _happened_?"  


  
Beth looked up, her eyes wide and a little stricken. "Oh - um.. I... wellll..."  


  
It was obvious that she hadn't thought of that, and Darkwing rolled his eyes.  


  
"I, um, I guess what happened is that... we were talking, and then when you came in, he got kind of - startled, and pulled a lever, and he didn't... know it?"  


  
Oh, please. That was pathetic. He turned to Bushroot, who grinned nervously. When he turned back to Beth she was wearing an almost identical expression. Well, something was going on here, that was obvious. "Listen, Ms. Webfoot," he said, "if something happened here this afternoon, you can press charges and I can guarantee you this guy will never bother you again. All you have to do is say something."  


  
She shook her head. "No, sir. I... I have nothing to say."  


  
"So you just came over for tea."  


  
"Well... not exactly, but... he didn't do anything wrong."  


  
"Alright. So you're best friends, then."  


  
"No," she said, and her eyes had an odd look in them as she stared at the mutant plant-duck that was standing beside Darkwing. He waited for her to say more, but she fell silent then, and looked at her feet again.  


  
This whole thing was looking more and more peculiar. But it was obvious he wasn't going to get any kind of testimony out of her, so he might as well get her out of here.  


  
"Well, then. If there's nothing more to add..." He paused, and she didn't say anything, so he finished, "I'll finish up here with Bushroot. You can get going, miss." Beth looked up at him again, and now she looked at him oddly. He narrowed his eyes. "Is there a problem? Do you want to give a statement?"  


  
"Um, no, I - I'm sorry. You... you just remind me of someone." She cocked her head, looking intent and thoughtful, and Darkwing felt his heart skip a beat. He stepped back and pulled the brim of his hat down slightly, avoiding eye contact.  


  
"Yeah, I uh, I get that a lot," he said, making his voice a bit more gruff than usual. "It's, uh, all the TV interviews and - and so forth."  


  
"OH," she said, dawning recognition in her voice. "You're probably right. Well." She stepped back and smiled nervously. "I guess I'll... get going, then."  


  
When she didn't go anywhere, Darkwing sighed. "You're released," he said, in case she needed permission.  


  
She looked at him, then at Launchpad, a little awkwardly. "Actually, um, this will sound weird but... can I have a moment to speak to R- to Bushroot?"  


  
Darkwing's suspicion radar went off. Loudly. "Suuuuuure," he said carefully, and stepped aside, letting go of Bushroot's handcuffs. He signaled to Launchpad, and when his sidekick approached, he hissed, "Something's wrong here. She's obviously lying."  


  
"Yeah, I dunno, but it does seem awful weird that she'd be here on her own, doesn't it? Why do you think she'd be protectin' him after he kidnapped her?"  


  
Darkwing shook his head, his eyes never leaving the skinny brunette as she spoke in low undertones to Bushroot, their heads close together, the message clearly intimate. "I don't think she's lying about not being kidnapped. I think she's lying when she says they weren't up to anything."  


  
"Huh?" Launchpad asked, clearly taken aback.  


  
"Mark my words, LP," Darkwing muttered, "that woman is anything but harmless."  


  


* * *

  


  
When Darkwing and Launchpad had moved off to the side, Beth approached Bushroot. He was nervous - things hadn't exactly been going all that well between them for the past little bit - but, given that she'd just covered for him in a big way, he was hopeful too.  


  
He smiled when she got close. "Well. Thanks. I think maybe he'll let me off."  


  
Beth smiled too. "Good. I hope he does. Maybe he's not all as bad as you say."  


  
"Well..." Bushroot thought; there had been a few times when he'd thought that himself about Darkwing, times when they'd worked together, but... Those times had never lasted. "Maybe," he said, since she seemed to want him to think positively. "Heh. So. Um, about that whole experiment thing..."  


  
Looking uncomfortable, Beth said, "Let's not talk about that, okay? Let's just leave it at this."  


  
He nodded, relieved. "Okay. Look, Beth, if I don't end up in jail-" She looked up at him, an unvoiced question in her eyes. He swallowed hard, and finished. "Can I... look you up?"  


  
She pressed the edges of her bill together tightly and looked away. His heart sank in his chest. "Um... Listen, Reggie... You're a nice guy. Really, I can tell that you are. But... I think you have some things you need to work out for yourself. Things like... letting people not be plants."  


  
"That does seem to keep coming up," he admitted in a low voice.  


  
Beth nodded. "Yeah. I think... until you get that stuff sorted through... I'd really rather we just..." She stopped, and he could tell she was searching for something gentle to say. "Just... left it this way."  


  
Well... Easy come, easy go. He sighed, and shrugged. "Yeah, if you say so," he offered. "Story of my life."  


  
She looked sad. "Sorry. Maybe we'll meet up again someday."  


  
"Sure." He nodded, but he didn't believe it, and he didn't think she did either. Oh, well.  


  
Beth gave him a quick pat on his shoulder, smiled a little, and walked away. A mere moment later Darkwing was just behind him, grabbing at the handcuffs again. The big pilot sidekick brushed past them both, following Beth out; Bushroot ignored him and asked, "So, if I get this antidote together, what are the chances of you NOT taking me to jail?"  


  
Darkwing didn't look like he was willing to bargain. "Look Twiggy, you and I both know you did this. Nobody else could and nobody else _would_."  


  
"But can anyone else undo it?" Bushroot asked stubbornly; he turned his head away from Darkwing, holding his chin high, and waited until the vigilante answered.  


  
In a begrudging tone, Darkwing said, "Okay. So let's make a deal, then."  


  


* * *

  


  
"Hey Beth! Beth, hang on!" Launchpad had been instructed to make sure she didn't notice the ThunderQuack - and Gosalyn - once she got outside. The easiest way to do this was to escort Beth home, even though that meant a long walk and leaving the TQ up at Bushroot's greenhouse for however long it took.  


  
She turned around and looked at him inquisitively. The sun was starting to go down just behind her, and it set off a highlight in her hair that he hadn't known was there - a very slight red against the brown.  


  
"Uh, hey, I'll walk ya home," he said as he caught up to her.  


  
"Oh. That's nice of you," she said, and smiled. She walked slowly, looking at the leaves on the trees, apparently deep in thought.  


  
They went in silence for a few moments, before he spoke up. "Wow. Crazy day, huh?"  


  
She gave a short laugh. "Crazy. Oh gosh. You have no idea." Grinning self-consciously, she turned around to face him. "I haven't eaten, I've barely slept, and I spent the day with a supervillain trying to convince him to let me go home. If you hadn't come in when you did, I'd be some kind of botany experiment right now. This day has been pretty far outside of my comfort zone, actually, and the only reason I'm not crying right now is because I can't quite believe it all happened."  


  
Launchpad blinked. "So he did kidnap you?"  


  
She froze. "Oh lord. Don't tell Darkwing I said that, okay?"  


  
"But he did," Launchpad pressed. She nodded reluctantly. "Why'd you say he didn't? Why're you protectin' him?"  


  
"Because... because he..." She stopped walking as they reached the bottom of the hill the greenhouse sat atop, and shook her head. "I felt sorry for him. He's not scary, really, and he's not mean. He's just..."  


  
"Misunderstood?" Launchpad offered. Beth met his eyes and cracked a smile.  


  
"Kind of," she agreed. "I mean, I was scared of him at first... and maybe I should have been the whole time, maybe I should be angry, but I... I can't. There was something he said earlier, about loneliness. 'The crushing loneliness of knowing you're the only one of your kind.' It just got me thinking, and I didn't want anything to happen to him after that."  


  
"Got you thinking about what?"  


  
She half-shrugged. "I don't know. About things. Everything. Me, I guess. I mean, I've been lonely, I know what that's like. Not THAT lonely... not so lonely that I'd want to punish everyone else, but..."  


  
"I don't think you'd ever be that lonely." When she looked up at him, Launchpad smiled. "What I mean is, I think it's more than just bein' lonely that makes someone do that."  


  
She returned the smile, but it was sad around the edges. Then she turned her head and her glasses caught some of the sunset, reflecting a light orange and hiding the view of her eyes. "I hope that's true," she said softly.  


  
Launchpad felt an overwhelming need to change the subject. "So - hey, how'd you get out today anyway? Or were you outside when alla this happened?"  


  
"Oh no," she shook her head vehemently. "I woke up and just PANICKED. I had to crawl out through a skylight in the attic of the store and then climb down from the roof-"  


  
"The store?" he interrupted. "D'you mean Bindler's?"  


  
Beth didn't answer, but she made the most appealingly crestfallen face.  


  
He knew he probably shouldn't ask, but he just had to. "Did you _sleep_ at Bindler's last night?"  


  
Beth looked down at the ground, her shoulders slumping at her sides, and let out a long breath. "Yes," she said finally, "yes I did." She looked up at him, and said, "I slept at Bindler's last night," almost apologetically, then started laughing.  


  
He couldn't help it; he laughed too, and that got her going even more. Slightly breathlessly, she said, "I-I had to do the inventory - and - oh gosh, it sounds so pathetic, but..."  


  
"Aw, you're too hard on yourself." Launchpad grinned, and she looked sheepish. "It is funny though. Sounds like you really love hardware."  


  
"Pfff, hardly." She laughed again, then stopped and sighed. "Look, you don't need to walk me home. I don't really think anything's going to happen to me."  


  
"Well..." He looked around; she had a point, there was nobody out who could do anything. "For the company?" he tried.  


  
She shrugged, and managed to give it an air of "no". "I haven't had a chance to be alone all day. I need to decompress and just... enjoy all of this while it lasts."  


  
"Ya mean the plants?" She nodded. "You like it?"  


  
Smiling slightly, she said, "I like it as long as it's going away." She shuffled her feet, then gave Launchpad an awkward wave. "Come by and see me tomorrow, okay?"  


  
He smiled. "Will do." And then he watched her walk away for a moment or two, before turning and heading back up the hill to where Darkwing was waiting.  


  


* * *

  


  
"What kept you?" Darkwing asked when Launchpad got back. He was standing outside the greenhouse, feeling slightly lost. His sidekick was their only ride home, and he'd been gone so long that Darkwing was starting to worry that Launchpad was going to walk that woman home or something crazy like that. He was relieved to see he'd been wrong, but still worried about the absence.  


  
Launchpad shrugged. "Just talkin'. You said to keep an eye on her. What happened to Bushroot?"  


  
Darkwing jerked a finger back towards the glass walls. "He's working on the cure to this whole thing. I said we'd let him off with a house arrest if he could do it in less than three hours."  


  
"Wow, that's nice of you!"  


  
Darkwing snorted, and headed back towards the ThunderQuack without another word. His thoughts were full of Beth Webfoot, and what her presence here today implied. Not only did she pal around with two known supervillains, but her comment about finding him familiar had him pretty sure that she was staking him out; well, he'd stake her out right back. And he had the advantage, because she had no idea he was on to her.  


  
As counterintuitive as it might seem, Darkwing intended to have her keep babysitting for at least a little while longer. He planned to keep that woman close at hand for as long as it took for her to slip up... and then he'd have her. Until then, he'd just have to wait.  


  


* * *

  


  
END.  


  
 _To be continued in "Forever Young"._   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: HOKAY it's done. Bah. Names of flowers, including rare ones, are correct; I either Wikipedia'd them or googled them. Gibberellin and Paclobuzatrol are real things but unlikely to cause the effects shown here even with a telepathic suggestion from a mutant plant duck (but hey you never know, right?). I just wanted something that sounded vaguely plausible.
> 
> Sorry to anyone who wanted Bushroot to come out as a good guy. If anything I think he'll get house arrest for this one, if that's a consolation. Honestly, I think if Darkwing hadn't shown up right when he did then Bushroot probably would've backed off on Beth... But we'll never know will we? Well, the thing is, I just couldn't let him not be a villain. Because the dude's got problems. I love him like crazy but he needs group therapy or something.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! Check my blog, the Weblog Chronicles, for related info on this and my other fics; I'll try to put chapter notes up soon. The URL for the blog is in my profile. Thanks again for your interest and I hope you keep reading! :)
> 
> Copyright 1995, 2010-11 by Zebeckras. Beth Webfoot and Henny Chickstein are the property of the author; Darkwing Duck, Launchpad McQuack, Gosalyn Mallard, Bushroot, and pretty much everyone else are the property of Disney.


End file.
